Theorizing and documenting relationships between "black" and "white" writing in America, Writing between the Lines is an investigation of interethnic intertextuality and the mutual literary and cultural influences that have been appropriated by American writers of differing ethnic backgrounds.

Although numerous studies have explored African-American literary traditions and their position within the American literary canon, few scholars have addressed the African/American intertext, perhaps because the critical gaze has been fixed so steadily upon identity within racial boundaries. Exploring the fluidity of these boundaries, Aldon L. Nielsen examines the relationships between the works of black and white American writers, focusing on those of the twentieth century.

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Nielsen contends that the designations "black" and "white" do not denote essential racial being, but rather that this kind of simplified grouping is a means of societal oppression. In a similar fashion, expectations of clear demarcations between the works of writers of African descent and the works of writers of European descent inhibit the acknowledgment that the boundaries between the two constantly shift and change.

Nielsen contends that literary works do not merely reflect racial difference, they produce difference. As black writers assert their commend of language and their right to describe the world we live in, and as white writers appropriate the language and culture of black people in their work, together they create an endlessly changing and nomadic new-world literature.

1. The chapters in Writing between the Lines "are tentative chartings of a refigured America that has always been here," Nielsen writes. "They are neither first nor last steps; they are the lost steps of an inter-American dance that we have all been doing all along."