About
Richard Wright was a major African American writer, born into a poor family in Mississippi. He joined the Communist Party in 1932 and became an editor in Harlem. His novel Native Son (1940) was the first book by a Black author selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Black Boy (1945), a fictionalized autobiography, was also a great success. Settled in Paris in 1947, he frequented existentialist circles. The Outsider (1953) was hailed as the first American existential novel. He also wrote essays on decolonization and Pan-Africanism. He left about 4,000 haiku, published posthumously.
* 1908-09-04 — † 1960-11-28
Major works
- Native Son (1940)novel
- Black Boy (1945)autobiography
- The Outsider (1953)novel
- Black Power (1954)essay
- Haiku: This Other World (1998)poetry
Key milestones
- 1940Native Son becomes the first book by a Black author selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club.
- 1941Receives the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for Native Son.
- 1947Settles permanently in Paris as an expatriate.
Themes
racismBlack identitypovertyexistentialismdecolonization
Sources: britannica.com · poetryfoundation.org