Was Huck Black?

From Ellison to Hemingway, Huck Finn is considered one of the greatest American novels of all time--it was the first book to allow blacks to find their own voices, as well as the foundation of all modern American literature. But where did the book come from and what makes it so distinctive? Shelley Fisher Fishkin argues that in Huckleberry Finn, more than in any other work, Mark Twain let African-American voices, language, and rhetorical traditions play a major role in the creation of his art.