Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past And Present

by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Kwame Anthony Appiah (Editor)

Richard Wright
(1908 -- 1960)Of the numerous achievements that distinguish Richard Wright's place in the history of American literature, perhaps none is more important than the fact that he was the first African-American writer to sustain himself professionally from his writings alone. Primarily through the success of Native Sonand Black Boy, Wright was able to support, for two decades, a comfortable life for himself and his family in Paris. He also became, with the publication of Native Sonalone, the first internationally celebrated Black American author. 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,his first and most successful novel.

-- from the Preface by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

496 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1993

About the author

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. is a Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He is well-known as a literary critic, an editor of literature, and a proponent of black literature and black cultural studies.