Cane is a 1923 novel by noted Harlem Renaissance author Jean Toomer. The novel is structured as a series of vignettes revolving around the origins and experiences of African Americans in the United States. The vignettes alternate in structure between narrative prose, poetry, and play-like passages of dialogue. As a result, the novel has been classified as a composite novel or as a short story cycle. Though some characters and situations recur in different vignettes, the vignettes are mostly freestanding, tied to the other vignettes thematically and contextually more than through specific plot details.

The novel's ambitious and unconventional structure is frequently discussed in the context of modernism.[1] Some of the vignettes from the novel have been excerpted and included in literary collections, while the poetic passage "Harvest Song" has been featured in multiple Norton poetry anthologies. The poem begins with the line: "I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown."[2]

Jean Toomer began writing sketches that would become the first section of Cane in November 1921 on a train from Georgia to Washington D.C.[3] By Christmas of 1921, the first draft of those sketches and the short story "Kabnis" were complete. Waldo Frank, Toomer's close friend, suggested that Toomer combine the sketches into a book. In order to form a book-length manuscript, Toomer added sketches relating to the black urban experience. When Toomer completed the book, he wrote: "My words had become a book...I had actually finished something."