Anatole Broyard (July 16, 1920–October 11, 1990) was an American literary critic for The New York Times. In addition to his reviews and columns, he published several books during his lifetime, and his most autobiographical works, Intoxicated by My Illness and Kafka Was the Rage, A Greenwich Village Memoir were published after his death. July 16 is the 197th day (198th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 168 days remaining. ... 1920 (MCMXX) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... October 11 is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years). ... This article is about the year. ... The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. ...

Interestingly, since his death Broyard's ethnicity has become a subject of discussion. Broyard was in born in New Orleans to parents who were both classified as "negro" and raised in a working-class "colored" community. Until recent decades, the black community of Louisiana included a distinct group of light-skinned/multi-racial families of Afro-European descent who tended to marry amongst one another, as opposed to marrying darker or more mixed families. Broyard himself was reluctant to discuss his ethnic background during his most of his life. Because of this, he was often accused of being a black man "passing" as white by some who criticized the fact that he did not openly support African-American causes or identify himself as a racial minority. Those who accuse him of passing point to the fact that he broke off contact with his darker, more visibly black siblings and friends from the predominantly black neighborhood in New York, where he lived for several years before his years at the New York Times. Others, however, contend that Broyard, who has very fair skinned, was probably of primarily European descent and therefore had no reason to declare himself black or African-American. New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ...

Broyard and his ethnic background was an inspiration for the character Coleman Silk in acclaimed novel The Human Stain by Philip Roth The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth, who was born in New Jersey in 1933. ... Philip Milton Roth (born March 19, 1933) is a Jewish-American novelist who is known for his 1959 collection, Goodbye, Columbus, as well as his sexually-explicit comedic novel Portnoys Complaint (1969) and for his late-90s trilogy comprising the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral (1997), I Married a...

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• "The Passing of Anatole Broyard" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Random House, 1997

This assessment of Anatole Broyard couldn't be more inaccurate and socially ignorant; obviously written by a person who lacks indepth understanding of black culture, intra-racism and (physical) trait hierarchy and politics, especially prevalent during the times of American apartheid. Henry Louis Skip Gates Jr. ...

Africa is a big place, and the small group of deep brown-skinned, full nose, tightly curled hair African Americans, so easily noticed by those of Euro descent, do not by any means represent the diversity of the people of the continent (of Africa).

The black nuclear family (of any country) commonly consists of a vast, and drastic, rainbow of skin complexions (my own included), eye colors, and hair textures, without any recent ad-mixture. Anatole Broyard was a black American man, intent on "passing" as so many light-complexioned blacks before him successfully did, who shared his "fortunate" complexion, and passion to escape second class citizenship of the day. It is insulting and demeaning that those who find such a situation unfathomable, difficult or unpleasant to digest, that he/she sees the need to season it to fit his tastes.