born April 27, 1882, Snow Hill, N.J., U.S.
died April 30, 1961, Philadelphia, Pa.
U.S. novelist, critic, poet, and editor.
Fauset studied at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. As literary editor of The Crisis (1919–26), she discovered and encouraged writers of the Harlem Renaissance , including Langston Hughes , Countee Cullen , Claude McKay , and Jean Toomer . In her own works, including her best-known novel, Comedy: American Style (1933), she portrayed mostly middle-class black characters forced to deal with self-hate as well as racial prejudice.