Langston Hughes (1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright and short story writer. Hughes was one of the writers and artists whose work was called the Harlem Renaissance.

Hughes was unusual for his time, because he went back to West Africa to understand more about his own culture. Through his poetry, plays, and stories, Hughes helped other black Americans to see themselves as part of a much bigger group of people, so that now the term "African-American" is used with pride.

Hughes became a famous writer, but all his life he remembered how he started out, and he helped and encouraged many other struggling writers.

Langston Hughes’s Style and Popular Poems

In his writing style, particularly in poetry, Hughes used music, rhythm, and images which drew on his African-American literary heritage. He used jazz and blue styles for the structure and subjects of his poems.

• I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

• Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.

• An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.