By: Briana Vegors

SEPTEMBER 4, 1908-NOVEMBER 28, 1960

-Born Richard Nathaniel Wright -African American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction -Born on a plantation near Natchez, Mississippi -Lived in an orphanage with his brother, and then lived with his grandmother and aunt who were extremely religious. His grandmother kept books out of the house and she thought that fiction was the work of the devil. -Lived in Memphis at age 16 and did odd jobs there. -Class valedictorian in June 1925 at the Smith Robertson Junior High School EARLY LIFE

One of Richard Wright’s greatest influences was H.L. Mencken. So Wright would forge a note to the librarian saying: “Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by H.L. Mencken?” Wright stayed clear of Harlem Renaissance writing because he considered them to be “humble and written by prim and decorous ambassadors who went a-begging to white America.” Wright urged black writers to take on a Marxist concept on society because he claimed this offered the “maximum degree of freedom in thought and feeling… for the Negro writer.” His first short story was called “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre” but no copies have survived. His autobiography is called Black Boy Influences and Writing

1927: Wright migrated to Chicago with a mass of other blacks who fled from all of the lynching, racism, and poverty in the South. 1930’s: Wright turned to Communism and began his voice in literature. 1936: Wright was a literary advisor for the Negro Federal Theatre of Chicago. TIMELINE

1937: Wright joined the Communist Party to control his freedom as a writer. 1940: “Native Son” the first bestselling novel by a black American writer was published. 1942: Wright finally broke with the Party due to artistic freedom and more importantly, the Party’s weak position on discrimination in the armed forces during WWII. 1944: Making the break with the Party official, Wright published “I Tried to Be a Communist.” TIMELINE CONTINUED…

Main character is named Bigger Thomas Bigger Thomas is a 19 year-old boy who becomes a chauffeur for a wealthy white family. There is a scene where Bigger has a sexual interest and encounter with the daughter of this family. This scene with Bigger and the family’s daughter was taken out of the novel in 1940 and then restored in fifty-three years later in Many blacks were uncomfortable with this character but Wright made the argument that racist America created Bigger and therefore American needed to change it’s attitude towards blacks. “NATIVE SON”

 Uncle Tom’s Children  The Man Who Was Almost a Man  Native Son  The Outsider  Savage Holiday  The Long Dream  Eight Men  Lewd Today  Rite of Passage  A Father’s Law FICTION NOVELS

Richard Wright’s second marriage was to a white woman, with whom he had two children with. Wright said that everybody would look at his family weird and in disgust when walking down the street. He was still unable to buy an apartment for them because of his race and so they moved to Paris, France. Wright suffered from amoebic dysentery and died suddenly after an apparent heart attack a year and a half later. THE LATER YEARS…

fe.htm The Norton Anthology of African American Literature: Richard Wright, pages ( ) WORKS CITED