Richard Wright

What a coincidence!! As I was about half-way through Richard Wright's Native Son, I stumbled across this feature which I thought was very interesting. I said I would post it once I finished the book, so here it is. This is just an excerpt, please read the full article here


The Enduring Importance of Richard Wright
by Milton Moskowitz

Richard Wright, who would have been 100 years old this year, was, arguably, the most influential African-American writer of the twentieth century. He stood astride the midsection of that century as a battering ram, paving the way for the black writers who followed him: Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, John Williams. Today, 48 years after his death, his legacy remains strong; his daughter, Julia Wright, is helping to keep it alive. She succeeded in getting HarperCollins to publish the unfinished novel her father was working on in the weeks before his death. It was published in January under the title, A Father’s Law. And she will host a series of seminars this year that will discuss her father’s work.

Wright was born on September 4, 1908, on a Mississippi plantation 22 miles east of Natchez. All of his four grandparents were slaves. He would find it ironic that today there is a plaque in Natchez marking his birth, for his upbringing in the South was a bitter, fearful experience, not something he looked back on with any fondness. His father deserted his family when Richard was five years old. He was shuttled to different family homes in Mississippi (Jackson and Greenwood) and Arkansas (Elaine and West Helena) before moving to Memphis. There was rarely enough food in the house.

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