Richard Wright (Magill’s Literary Annual 2002)
At a glance:
- Author: Hazel Rowley
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Literary biography
- Time of Work: 1908-1960
- Setting: Natchez and Jackson, Mississippi; Chicago; New York; Cuernavaca, Mexico; Paris; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gold Coast, Africa; Spain; Bandung, Indonesia
- Principal Characters: Richard Wright, Edward Aswell, Ellen Wright, Ralph Ellison, Paul Reynolds, Margaret Walker
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: 1950’s, African Americans, 1960’s, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Africa or Africans, France or French people, South or Southerners, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, Exile or expatriates, Literature, 1940’s, Midwest, Paris, 1910’s, 1920’s, 1930’s, Chicago, Asia or Asians, Novelists, Mississippi, Argentina or Argentineans, Mexico or Mexicans, South America or South Americans, Latin America or Latin Americans, Spain or Spanish people, Intelligence service, Illinois, 1900’s
- Locales: Africa, New York, Spain, Paris, France, Chicago, IL, Natchez, MS, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jackson, MS, Cuernavaca, Mexico, Indonesia
Richard Wright (1908-1960) is best known for his novel Native Son (1940) and his autobiographical Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth (1945). Between 1968 and 1988 four biographies of him appeared, two of them before his voluminous papers became readily available to researchers, one of them (that by Margaret Walker) soured by unhappy personal relations with her subject, and none of them approaching in thoroughness and literary grace Hazel Rowley’s “life and times.”
The contrast between the violent, primitive black men who predominate in Wright’s...
[The entire page is 1941 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
