A Visit to Grandmother

William Melvin Kelley, born in New York in 1937, was a renowned Black author. His novels and short stories are known for dealing with the complex nature of racial identity and explored American attitudes toward race in the wake of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. Praised for his innovative approach to social commentary and criticism along with elements of satire and irony, Kelley is often compared to authors such as William Faulkner and James Baldwin due to his experimental and humorous literary style.

Faulkner’s influence is most clear in Kelley’s choice for building recurrent characters in his works, as the writer often explored the different facets of characters’ personalities and life experiences. Like many of Kelley’s characters, the Dunford family is built in a complex and multifaceted manner, and, although they first appear in Dancers on the Shore (1964), some of the characters are also present in Kelley’s subsequent novels. Charles “Chig” Dunford Junior is the main character in Kelley’s final work, Dunfords Travels Everywheres (1970). Dis/integration, one of two unpublished novels Kelley left unfinished after his death in 2017, explores Chig’s continuing exploits as an adult.