Elbow Room

James Alan McPherson (1943-2016) was an American short story writer and essayist whose realistic fiction explored racial tensions, isolation, and American contradictions. His notable works include the collections Hue and Cry (1969) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Elbow Room (1977), making him the first African American to win the Pulitzer for Fiction; he also received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981.Encyclopaedia