His first recognised work , Mississippi Solo , an account of his journey down the entire length of the nation's major waterway , was published in 1988 .This work combines aspects of journalism , travel writing , autobiography and memoir and personal reflection, and , as with his subsequent works , focuses especially on questions of Africa-American identity in relation to history and place .
Listen to the following video about this work .
His second book , Native Stranger , 1992 , a critical and unsparing account of his journey through Africa , lost Harris a lot of Black readers who didn't appreciate his desciptions of poverty and corruption which he had witnessed in many places , as well as the despair he both saw and felt at times .
Then came South of Haunted Dreams , 1993 , in which he relates his experiences and thoughts whilst travelling in the Deep South . He had gone looking for himself and trouble , it seems to me , and to a certain degree found them both !
" At every turn , Harris challenges assumptions about race , forcing his readers to examine their own minds .... In thoughtful prose that is deeply personal , Harris rips open the wound of race and lets out the evils festering inside .... A consciousness-raising session on the conundrum of race relations ." - Los Angeles Reader
And as we can read at the beginning of the book thus proving he was searching for something -
Philosophy has informed us that the most difficult thing in the world is to know ourselves.' Marcus Tullius Cicero
Since then and following a two year stay in Harlem , Harris wrote Still Life in Harlem , published in 1996. He relates his daily experiences and quest and having passed through despair , fear , revulsion , resentment , joy and hope amongst other feelings , and having been exposed to the drugs and crime-ridden ruins of a once-vibrant black culture he finally reassures Eliot Winston , a Harlem resident that everything is not as hopeless as he believes .
Eliot , a former pillar of rage against the injustice and oppression of the white man's system , was ready to sign off saying : " It's hopeless . It's hopeless "
' " No , " I said . " You're wrong. " That's all I said . I thought it as I looked at Eliot and listened to him : the black man is dead , but as much as I longed - and still long , in fact - to see the death of the black man , it is a different death of which I speak and for which I yearn for all black men . It is the death of what the black man has come to symbolize . It is a death signifying glorious resurrection and rebirth . '
His last book , Jupiter et Moi published in 2005 in France , is a memoir about the life of a black man and his son . The book has not as yet been published in the USA .
Other possible links for your pleasure :
http://www.rolfpotts.com/writers/index.php?writer=Eddy+L.+Harris
