Wright, Richard

Wright, Richard ( 1908 – 60 ),
black American writer, brought up in Memphis, and largely self-educated; he joined the Communist Party in the 1930s, but left in the 1940s, as he records in The God that Failed ( 1950 ). His best-known novels are the powerful and violent Native Son ( 1940 ) and The Outsider ( 1953 ), both of which deal with tragedy in the lives of black victims of poverty and politics.