Black Boy

“Superb. . . . A great American writer speaks with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives.” New York Times Book Review

A striking new edition of Richard Wright’s powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the authors grandson.

When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945,Black Boywas both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of theNew York Timeswrote 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 Boywas banned in schools throughout the United States for obscenity and instigating hatred between the races.

Wrights 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 himwhites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he may his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end ofBlack Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo. More than seventy-five year later, his words continue to reverberate. To readBlack Boyis 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, Wrights account is a poignant record of struggle and endurancea seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.

Richard Wrightwon international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the black experience. He stands today alongside such African American luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, and two of his novels,Native SonandBlack Boy, are required reading in high schools and colleges across the nation. He died in 1960.

• Black Boy Richard Wright
• Item Weight:12.2 ounces
• Paperback:464 pages
• Product Dimensions:5.31 x 1.05 x 8 inches
• ISBN-13:9780062964137
• Publisher:Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Illustrated edition (February 18, 2020)
• Language:English