Cullen publishes My Lives and How I Lost Them
Poet involved
What happened
In 1942 Harper and Brothers published My Lives and How I Lost Them in New York, a children’s narrative presented as the autobiography of Christopher Cat “in collaboration with” Countee Cullen and illustrated by Robert Reid Macguire. The book continued the feline persona introduced in The Lost Zoo two years earlier. Cullen was then living in Tuckahoe and still teaching in Harlem.
Literary impact
The second Christopher Cat book confirmed Cullen’s late turn toward writing for children when adult lyric commissions had dwindled. Playful personae let him practise storytelling and humour outside the racial debate that had framed his 1920s reputation.
Source: Wikipedia
