Richard Wright

"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

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Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful stories collected here concerns an aspect of the lives of black people in the post-slavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression.

The author relates his life as an African American growing up in the South during the Jim Crow years.

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.

In "Long black song," a hard-working farmer invests what little he has in a gift for his wife, while back home, she falls for the advances of a traveling salesman. A small-town principal risks his career to defend a young boy's image of a black Christ painted for a state-wide competition in "The boy who painted Christ black." A jazz-joint piano player in "The Reunion" comes to terms with prejudices that have haunted her since childhood, when she is...