Richard Wright: The Life and Times

ISBN: 0226730387

Author: Rowley, Hazel

Condition: New

Consistently an outsider-a child of the fundamentalist South with an eighth-grade education, a self-taught intellectual, a black man married to a white woman-Richard Wright nonetheless became the unparalleled voice of his time. The first full-scale biography of the author best known for his searing novels Black Boy and Native Son, Richard Wright: The Life and Times brings the man and his work-in all their complexity and distinction-to vibrant life. Acclaimed biographer Hazel Rowley chronicles Wrights unprecedented journey from a sharecroppers shack in Mississippi to Chicagos South Side to international renown as a writer and outspoken critic of racism.Drawing on journals, letters, and eyewitness accounts, Richard Wright probes the authors relationships with Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison, his attraction to Communism, and his so-called exile in France. Skillfully interweaving quotes from Wrights own writings, Rowley deftly portrays a passionate, courageous, and flawed man who would become one of our most enduring literary figures.Splendid. . . . Richard Wright is well written, prodigiously researched, and nicely paced, a compelling evocation of the man, his craft, and the different worlds through which he moved.-Michael J. Ybarra, Wall Street JournalA welcome and illuminating work . . . [Rowley] does an outstanding job. . . . Rich and revealing.-Megan Harlan, San Francisco ChronicleA magnificent biography, subtle and insightful. . . . Rowley writes with style and grace, and her research on Wright is prodigious.-Howard Zinn, The Week