The Sport of the Gods

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"The Sport of the Gods" by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a novel published in 1902. When a Black butler is wrongly convicted of theft, his family is forced to flee the South for New York City. There, they encounter the harsh realities of Northern urban life as their dreams unravel. The father languishes in prison while his children fall into dangerous paths and his wife struggles to survive. This examination of early twentieth-century African American life explores how injustice and urban pressures can destroy a family.