This book on the prize-winning African American playwright Ed Bullins is the first to chronicle the life and work of the man who dominated the New York theatre scene between 1968 and 1982. With his presentations of street life, Bullins transformed the Protest and Art-theatre traditions founded by W. E. B. DuBois and Alain Locke and made important contributions to black theatre.

In Ed Bullins: A Literary Biography, Samuel Hay, author, theatre historian, critic, and director of Bullins's work, studies Bullins within the context of African American intellectual history and dramatic theory.

He analyzes many previously unpublished materials and more popular works, like The Taking of Miss Janie and The Fabulous Miss Marie, in five chapters that divide Bullins's dramas, musicals, and ritual or spiritual plays thematically by "classes." Some explore race relations, while others call for political and economic equality. An appendix of Bullins's work and a select bibliography follow the thematic discussion.