1939, USA : The african-american writer ARNA BONTEMPS (1902 - 1973). Was an American poet and a noted member of the negro Harlem Renaissance.His critically most important work, The Story of the Negro (1948), received the Jane Addams Book Award and was also a Newbery Honor Book. He is probably best known for the 1931 novel God Sends Sunday, the 1936 novel Black Thunder, and the 1966 anthology Great Slave Narratives. He also wrote the 1946 play St. Louis Woman with Countee Cullen