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Richard Wright (1) (1908–1960)

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55+ opere 17,018 membri 216 recensioni 32 preferito

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Richard Wright was generally thought of as one of the most gifted contemporary African American writers until the rise of James Baldwin. "With Wright, the pain of being a Negro is basically economic---its sight is mainly in the pocket. With Baldwin, the pain suffuses the whole man. . . . If mostra altro Baldwin's sights are higher than Wright's, it is in part because Wright helped to raise them" (Time). Wright was born on a plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, the son of a sharecropper. At the age of 15, he started to work in Memphis, then in Chicago, then "bummed all over the country," supporting himself by various odd jobs. His early writing was in the smaller magazines---first poetry, then prose. He won Story Story's $500 prize---for the best story written by a worker on the Writer's Project---with "Uncle Tom's Children" in 1938, his first important publication. He wrote Native Son (1940) in eight months, and it made his reputation. Based in part on the actual case of a young black murderer of a white woman, it was one of the first of the African American protest novels, violent and shocking in its scenes of cruelty, hunger, rape, murder, flight, and prison. Black Boy (1945) is the simple, vivid, and poignant story of Wright's early years in the South. It appeared at the beginning of a new postwar awareness of the evils of racial prejudice and did much to call attention to the plight of the African American. The Outsider (1953) is a novel based on Wright's own experience as a member of the Communist party, an affiliation he terminated in 1944. He remained politically inactive thereafter and from 1946 until his death made his principal residence in Paris. His nonfiction writings on problems of his race include Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos (1954), about a visit to the Gold Coast, White Man, Listen (1957), and Twelve Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States. (Bowker Author Biography) Richard Wright was born on a plantation near Natchez, Mississippi. His father left the family when Wright was only five years old, and he was raised first by his mother and then by a series of relatives. What little schooling he had ended with his graduation from ninth grade in Memphis, Tennessee. At age 15, he started to work in Memphis, and later worked in Chicago before traveling across the country supporting himself with odd jobs. When Wright finally returned to Chicago, he got a job with the federal Writer's Project, a government-supported arts program. He was quite successful, winning a $500 prize from a magazine for the best fiction written by a participant in that program. In Chicago, he was also introduced to leftist politics and became a member of the Communist Party. In 1937, Wright left Chicago for New York, where he became Harlem editor for the Communist national newspaper, The Daily Worker, and where he met future novelist, Ralph Ellison. Wright became a celebrated author with the publication of Native Son (1940), a novel he wrote in only eight months. Based on the actual case of a young black murderer of a white woman, it was one of the first of the modern black protest novels, violent and shocking in its sense of cruelty, hunger, rape, murder, flight, and prison. This novel brought Wright both fame and financial security. He followed it with his autobiography, Black Boy (1945), which was also successful. In 1942, Wright and his wife broke with the Communist Party, and in 1947, they moved to France, where Wright lived the rest of his life. His novel The Outsider (1953) is based on his experiences as a member of the Communist Party. Wright is regarded as a major modern American writer, one of the first black writers to reach a large white audience, and thereby raise the level of national awareness of the continuing problem of racism in America. In many respects Wright paved the way for all black writers who followed him. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: Richard Wright (1908-1960)
Photograph by Gordon Parks, May 1943
(Farm Security Administration-
Office of War Information Photograph Collection,
Library of Congress)

Opere di Richard Wright

Paura (1940) 7,673 copie
Ragazzo negro (1945) 5,166 copie
I figli dello zio Tom (1938) 735 copie
Ho bruciato la notte (1953) 390 copie
Eight Men: Short Stories (1961) 259 copie
Native Son (Abridged) (1940) 221 copie
Rite of passage (1994) 182 copie
Fame americana (1977) 178 copie
12 Million Black Voices (1941) 153 copie
Haiku: This Other World (1998) 130 copie
Pagan Spain (1957) 114 copie
Ghetto negro (1963) 97 copie
The Long Dream (1958) 95 copie
A Father's Law (2008) 94 copie
Razza umana (1957) 79 copie
Savage Holiday (1954) 59 copie
Richard Wright Reader (1978) 38 copie
Native Son / Black Boy (1987) 36 copie
Thy Fearful Symmetry (2012) 16 copie
Almos' a Man (2000) 9 copie
Injustice: Vintage Minis (2018) 8 copie
Bright and Morning Star (1939) 7 copie
Richard Wright (2002) 3 copie
Neli meest : [novellid] (1963) 3 copie
Black Boy [Easy Reader] (1971) 2 copie
Der schwarze Traum (1971) 1 copia
Callaloo Vol. 9 No. 3 (1986) 1 copia
Długi sen 1 copia
Sangre negra 1 copia

Opere correlate

The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2000) — Collaboratore — 1,552 copie
Winter Poems (1994) — Collaboratore — 1,166 copie
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Collaboratore, alcune edizioni915 copie
The Best American Essays of the Century (2000) — Collaboratore — 774 copie
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (1992) — Collaboratore — 743 copie
Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study (1992) — Collaboratore, alcune edizioni513 copie
The God That Failed (1944) — Collaboratore — 426 copie
The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (1994) — Collaboratore — 404 copie
Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993) — Collaboratore — 332 copie
A Treasury of Short Stories (1947) — Collaboratore — 291 copie
Modern American Memoirs (1995) — Collaboratore — 189 copie
This Is My Best (1942) — Collaboratore — 186 copie
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (2020) — Collaboratore — 169 copie
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1962) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni159 copie
Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues (1963) — Prefazione — 150 copie
The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work (2010) — Collaboratore — 142 copie
The Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories (1991) — Collaboratore — 121 copie
Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White (1998) — Collaboratore — 118 copie
Voices from the Harlem Renaissance (1976) — Collaboratore — 106 copie
The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1997) — Collaboratore — 98 copie
The 100 Best African American Poems (2010) — Collaboratore — 96 copie
American Short Stories (1976) — Collaboratore, alcune edizioni95 copie
Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America (1995) — Collaboratore — 91 copie
200 Years of Great American Short Stories (1975) — Collaboratore — 68 copie
D.C. Noir 2: The Classics (2008) — Collaboratore — 63 copie
Racism and Sexism: An Integrated Study (1988) — Collaboratore — 62 copie
American Negro Short Stories (1966) — Collaboratore — 61 copie
Chicago Noir: The Classics (2015) — Collaboratore — 50 copie
Eleven Modern Short Novels (1970) — Collaboratore — 49 copie
Soulscript: Afro-American Poetry (1970) — Collaboratore — 40 copie
Southern Dogs and Their People (2000) — Collaboratore — 39 copie
New Masses; An Anthology of the Rebel Thirties, (1969) — Collaboratore — 38 copie
Fifty Best American Short Stories 1915-1965 (1965) — Collaboratore — 36 copie
50 Best American Short Stories 1915-1939 (1939) — Collaboratore — 28 copie
America on Stage : Ten Great Plays of American History (1976) — Collaboratore — 22 copie
Modern American Short Stories (1945) — Collaboratore — 15 copie
Mississippi Writers: An Anthology (1991) — Collaboratore — 14 copie
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, Volume I (1962) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni10 copie
Quintet: 5 of the World's Greatest Short Novels (1956) — Collaboratore — 6 copie
The Best American Short Stories 1958 (1958) — Collaboratore — 5 copie
Native Son [1951 film] (2003) — Actor / Original book — 5 copie
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1938 (1938) — Collaboratore — 4 copie
Twelve short novels (1976) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Let Us Be Men (1969) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Strange Barriers (1955) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
The Ethnic Image in Modern American Literature, 1900-1950 (1984) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Introduction to Fiction (1974) — Collaboratore — 1 copia

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Utenti

Recensioni

 
Segnalato
deborahee | 99 altre recensioni | Feb 23, 2024 |
This actually consists of a novella-length story, plus a nonfiction essay. The short story is the one of the title. It’s set in the 1940s(?) (that’s when it was originally written, anyway), and a black man, Fred, leaving work, just having been paid in cash, is “arrested” by the police and “questioned”/tortured. Initially not knowing even what they police were talking about, it turns out the neighbours of the people Fred worked for had been murdered in their home earlier in the day. Fred manages to escape and moves underground via the sewers from building to building for a few days.

The essay talked about how the author grew up with his very religious Grandmother and how some things from that experience related to this story.

Overall, I’m rating it ok. The essay got pretty philosophical, so wasn’t all that interesting to me. The story itself was better, but also a little bit odd while Fred was underground. I definitely did not see the end coming (but maybe I should have?).
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
LibraryCin | 12 altre recensioni | Feb 11, 2024 |
A young sociopath kills a white woman he barely knows, by accident, dismembers her and burns her body, then rapes and kills his own girlfriend. He is hunted down and captured, pleads guilty and goes to trial for the murder of the white woman. The man's race is used as a convenient explanation for his crimes, while his case is picked up by various people with their own agendas as a tool for their use. The fact that Wright is drawing on his own experiences as a Black man during the depression makes this book stronger, but the trial and justice system stuff in the third part is tedious and needed more editing. It seems pretty obvious that the boy Bigger is supposed to be assumed to have been pushed by racism to become a violent criminal, even though he has friends and family who are not killers and rapists despite living in the same environment. He seems to feel no remorse for his crimes. While the fact that his rape and murder of his girlfriend seems less important to the white people involved in the case, Bigger doesn't even seem to think about Bessie as a human being, just something that got in the way and needed to be discarded.
As far as social commentary, though, this book does show a good argument for the importance of education and economic equity. The fact that Bigger and his friends and family are so poorly educated makes them more vulnerable to mistreatment by people with more education, and their lack of education makes it harder for them to make good decisions that improve their lives. Another interesting argument from this story would be the importance of purpose in men's lives. The poor women in this story, with the responsibilities on their shoulders to keep themselves and their households functional, seem less inclined to resort to stupid criminal acts with high risks. The one truly irresponsible woman in this book, Mary, is living a pampered life similar to Bigger's, in that any mistakes she makes are dealt with by her parents or other responsible adults. Both Mary and Bigger can continue to act immature and irresponsible, at least until Bigger murders Mary and thus creates consequences even his mother and Bessie can't rescue him from.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
JBarringer | 99 altre recensioni | Dec 15, 2023 |
56. The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
afterward Malcolm Wright (2021)
OPD: 2021 (written 1941-1942, with a shortened version published in 1944)
format: 228-page Kindle ebook
acquired: October 3 read: Oct 4-15 time reading: 5:44, 1.5 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Novel theme: Richard Wright
locations: unknown American city, probably southern
about the author: American author born on a Mississippi plantation, 1908-1960

This for me was a curiosity, part powerful, part quirky. Wright takes a close look at police brutality against African Americans (a point noted in his publisher's rejection documentation) and then an almost surreal look at a refugee living in American sewers. Fred Daniels, a good church-going upstanding person and expectant father, is arrested for a murder he knows nothing about. He's not questioned, but beat-up by an all-white police force demanding a confession. It's not clear where his mind was before this happens, but he gets rattled, and it seems his mind is never able to settle down. Instead, in the sewers he tunnels, and he stumbles across apparent odd truths about the basics in life - religion, death, money, entertainment, etc.

Maybe think Plato's cave. It's a combination of Wright's creativity and what I see has his semi-super-aware, semi-blind romantic mindset. It makes an odd combination of strange guy in a strange place doing strange things that don't quite make sense. In a long afterward, which Wright intended to be published with the novel, he explained the novel as a response to the stubborn illogical religious faith his grandmother followed and depended on, a source of conflict between he and his grandmother, his main parent during his older childhood.

This is a lost novel. Wright wrote it written during WW2, in 1942, but it was rejected for publication by his publisher. A shorter version was published in a journal, and later in a posthumous collection. Wright moved on, composing [Black Boy], his classic published in 1945. There he goes directly into his grandmother's religion and state of mind, and its impacts on him. The full version of this novel was first published in 2021, after Wright's grandson, Malcolm Wright, pushed for it.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/354226#8263418
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
dchaikin | 12 altre recensioni | Oct 22, 2023 |

Liste

1940s (1)
AP Lit (2)

Premi e riconoscimenti

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Autori correlati

Edwin Rosskam Photo-Direction
Oscar Ryan Contributor
Robin Endres Editor, introduction
Arnold Rampersad Notes, Introduction, Editor, , Afterword
Malcolm Wright Afterword
Nina Crews Introduction
John Reilly Afterword
David Diaz Cover artist, Illustrator
Caryl Phillips Introduction
Camillo Pellizzi Translator
Mary Schuck Cover designer
Gösta Olzon Translator
Peter Cade Cover artist
Julia Wright Contributor
Bruno Fonzi Translator
Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Introduction
Richard Yarborough Introduction
Stephanie Rosenfeld Book and cover designer
Keneth Kinnamon Contributor
Cornel West Introduction
John Williams Foreword

Statistiche

Opere
55
Opere correlate
70
Utenti
17,018
Popolarità
#1,306
Voto
4.0
Recensioni
216
ISBN
353
Lingue
13
Preferito da
32

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