Most Popular Books by Richard Wright

Back in its original unabridged form, a novel of Depression-era Chicago.

A special 75th anniversary edition of Richard Wright''s powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a new foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author’s grandson. When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that “if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy.” Yet from 1975 to 1978, Black Boy was banned in schools throughout the United States for “obscenity” and “instigating hatred between the races.” Wright’s once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him—whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and Blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he headed north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end of Black Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to “hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo.” Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate. “To read Black Boy is to stare into the heart of darkness,” John Edgar Wideman writes in his foreword. “Not the dark heart Conrad searched for in Congo jungles but the beating heart I bear.” One of the great American memoirs, Wright’s account is a poignant record of struggle and endurance—a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.

Autobiography of Southern Negro who yearned for intellectual and physical freedom.

“If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr. Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright''s powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America. This edition of Native Son includes an essay by Wright titled, How "Bigger" was Born, along with notes on the text.

Collection of interviews revealing Wright''s racial experience and the themes and techniques of his own work.

A black author''s assault upon a society that transforms self-destructiveness into an art.

Savage Holiday, first published in 1954 by noted American author Richard Wright, is a tense, well-written psychological thriller about Erskine Fowler, an insurance executive forced into early retirement, who, over the course of a bizarre weekend, is responsible for the accidental death of his neighbor’s young son. Tragic consequences follow as Fowler attempts to redeem himself and is forced to question his own life, as events spiral out-of-control to their inevitable conclusion.

From Richard Wright, one of the most powerful, acclaimed, and essential American authors of the twentieth century, comes a compelling story of one man''s attempt to escape his past and start anew in Harlem. Cross Damon is a man at odds with society and with himself—a man of superior intellect who hungers for peace but who brings terror and destruction wherever he goes. The Outsider is an important work of fiction that depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms. Brilliantly imagined and frighteningly prescient, it is an epic exploration of the tragic roots of criminal behavior.

At four years of age, Richard Wright set fire to his home; at five his father deserted the family; by six Richard was - temporarily - an alcoholic. It was in saloons, railroad yards and streets that he learned the facts about life under white subjection, about fear, hunger and hatred. Gradually he learned to play Jim Crow in order to survive.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Pagan Spain" by Richard Wright. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

"Johnny, you''re leaving us tonight . . . " Fifteen-year-old Johnny Gibbs does, well in school, respects his teachers, and loves his family. Then suddenly, with a few short words, his idyllic life is shattered. He learns that the family he has loved all his life is not his own, but a foster family. And now he is being sent to live with someone else. Shocked by the news, Johnny does the only thing he can think of: he runs. Leaving his childhood behind forever, Johnny takes to the streets where he learns about living life--the hard way. Richard Wright, internationally acclaimed author of Black Boy and Native Son, gives us a coming-of-age story as compelling today as when it was first written, over fifty years ago. ‘Johnny Gibbs arrives home jubilantly one day with his straight ‘A’ report card to find his belongings packed and his mother and sister distraught. Devastated when they tell him that he is not their blood relative and that he is being sent to a new foster home, he runs away. His secure world quickly shatters into a nightmare of subways, dark alleys, theft and street warfare. . . . Striking characters, vivid dialogue, dramatic descriptions, and enduring themes introduce a enw generation of readers to Wright’s powerful voice.’—SLJ. Notable 1995 Children''s Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)

New York Times Bestseller One of the Best Books of 2021 by Time magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe and Esquire, and one of Oprah’s 15 Favorite Books of the Year “The Man Who Lived Underground reminds us that any ‘greatest writers of the 20th century’ list that doesn’t start and end with Richard Wright is laughable. It might very well be Wright’s most brilliantly crafted, and ominously foretelling, book.” —Kiese Laymon A major literary event: an explosive, previously unpublished novel about race and violence in America by the legendary author of Native Son and Black Boy Fred Daniels, a Black man, is picked up by the police after a brutal double murder and tortured until he confesses to a crime he did not commit. After signing a confession, he escapes from custody and flees into the city’s sewer system. This is the devastating premise of this scorching novel, a never-before-seen masterpiece by Richard Wright. Written between his landmark books Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), at the height of his creative powers, it would see publication in Wright''s lifetime only in drastically condensed and truncated form, and ultimately be included in the posthumous short story collection Eight Men. Now, for the first time, by special arrangement with the author’s estate, the full text of the work that meant more to Wright than any other (“I have never written anything in my life that stemmed more from sheer inspiration”) is published in the form that he intended, complete with his companion essay, “Memories of My Grandmother.” Malcolm Wright, the author’s grandson, contributes an afterword.

In the powerful tradition of Native Son, Richard Wright''s last novel is a stirring story of racial prejudice in the South.

Includes a brief biography of the author, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas.

"A formidable and lasting contribution to American literature." —Chicago Tribune Originally published in 1938, Uncle Tom''s Children, a collection of novellas, was the first book from Richard Wright, who would go on to win international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the Black experience. The author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, most notably the acclaimed novel Native Son and his stunning autobiography, Black Boy, Wright stands today as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful and devastating stories in Uncle Tom''s Children concerns an aspect of the lives of Black people in the post-slavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. The collection also includes a personal essay by Wright titled "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow."

“An intense, provocative, and vital crime story that excavates paradoxical dimensions of race, class, sexism, family bonds, and social obligation while seeking the deepest meaning of the law." — Booklist Originally published posthumously by his daughter and literary executor Julia Wright, A Father’s Law is the novel Richard Wright, acclaimed author of Black Boy and Native Son, never completed. Written during a six-week period prior to his death in Paris in 1960, it offers a fascinating glimpse into the writer’s process as well as providing an important addition to Wright’s body of work. In rough form, Wright expands the style of a crime thriller to grapple with themes of race, class, and generational conflicts as newly appointed police chief Ruddy Turner begins to suspect his own son, Tommy, a student at the University of Chicago, of a series of murders in Brentwood Park. Under pressure to solve the killings and prove himself, Turner spirals into an obsession that forces him to confront his ambivalent relationship with a son he struggles to understand. Prescient, raw, and powerful, A Father''s Law is the final gift from a literary giant.

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Richard Wright''s devastating autobiography of his childhood and youth in the Jim Crow South His training by his elders was strict and harsh to prepare him for the "white world" which would be cruel. Their resentment of those trying to escape the common misery made his future seem hopeless. It was necessary to grow up restrained and submissive in southern white society and to endure torment and abuse. Wright tells of his mental and emotional struggle to educate himself, which gave him a glimpse of life''s possibilities and which led him to his triumphant decision to leave the South behind while still a teenager to live in Chicago and fulfill himself by becoming a writer.

Offers a selection of haiku poems by the acclaimed writer Richard Wright, with photograph illustrations and a short biography of Wright.

The expatriate, one of America''s greatest black writers, giving a bold assessment of the world''s outlook on race, a report of the Bandung Conference of 1955.

Three extraordinary and impassioned nonfiction works by Richard Wright, one of America''s premier literary giants of the twentieth century, together in one volume, with an introduction by Cornel West. “The time is ripe to return to [Wright’s] vision and voice in the face of our contemporary catastrophes and hearken to his relentless commitment to freedom and justice for all.” — Cornel West (from the Introduction) Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos is Richard Wright’s chronicle of his trip to Africa’s Gold Coast before it became the free nation of Ghana. It speaks eloquently of empowerment and possibility, freedom and hope, and resonates loudly to this day. The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference is a vital piece arguing for the removal of the color barrier and remains one of the key commentaries on the question of race in the modern era. “Truth-telling will perhaps always be unpopular and suspect, but in The Color Curtain . . . Wright did not hesitate to tell the truth as he saw it” (Amritjit Singh, Ohio University). White Man, Listen! is a stirring assortment of Wright’s essays on race, politics, and other social concerns close to his heart. It remains a work that “deserves to be read with utmost seriousness, for the attitude it expresses has an intrinsic importance in our times” (New York Times).

The haiku of acclaimed novelist Richard Wright, written at the end of his...

Tells the stories of a young farm worker deep in debt, a flood, murder, a fugitive, exile, and a railroad porter.