Dec 25, 2009

Bright and Morning Star | Author Biography

Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on Rucker’s Plantation on September 4, 1908, in Roxie, Mississippi. This was, writes Alfred Kazin in his article ‘‘Too Honest for His Own Time,’’ ‘‘a terrible place for a poor black to be born.’’ Wright’s father, Nathan, an illiterate sharecropper, deserted his family when Wright was five years old. Ella (Wilson), Wright’s mother, was a schoolteacher, but after her husband left, she had to take on jobs as a maid or cook. Wright was forced to move from state to state, as his mother pursued jobs and looked for financial support from...