Mark Zuckerberg
Mobsters
Icons of the Wild West
Robin Gibb
My Ghost Story
Mobsters
Robert Downey Jr
Margaret Thatcher
Marilyn Monroe
I Survived
Quick Facts
- NAME: Richard Wright
- OCCUPATION: Journalist, Author, Poet
- BIRTH DATE: September 04, 1908
- DEATH DATE: November 28, 1960
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Roxie, Mississippi
- PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France
Best Known For
African American writer and poet Richard Wright is best known for Black Boy, a moving account of his childhood and youth in the South.
Richard Nathaniel Wright. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 07:43, May 27, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751
Richard Nathaniel Wright [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751, May 27
" Richard Nathaniel Wright." 2012. Biography.com 27 May 2012, 07:43 http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751
' Richard Nathaniel Wright', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751 [accessed May 27, 2012]
" Richard Nathaniel Wright," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751 (accessed May 27, 2012).
Richard Nathaniel Wright [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 May 27]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751.
Richard Nathaniel Wright, http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751 (last visited May 27, 2012).
Richard Nathaniel Wright, http://www.biography.com/people/richard-wright-9537751 (last visited May 27, 2012).
Synopsis
African American writer and poet Richard Wright was the son of a sharecropper and went to school only through the ninth grade but published his first short story at the young age of 16. He found employment with the Federal Writers Project and his Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of four stories, was highly acclaimed. His autobiography, Black Boy, was published in 1945.
Profile
Writer, poet. Born Richard Nathaniel Wright on September 4, 1908 near Natchez, Mississippi. The grandson of slaves and the son of a sharecropper, he went to school in Jackson, Mississippi only until the ninth grade, but had a story published at age 16 while working at various jobs in the South. In 1927 he went to Chicago and worked briefly in the post office, but forced on relief by the Depression, he joined the Communist Party (1932).
With two more minor works published, he found employment with the Federal Writers Project, and his Uncle Tom's Children (1938), a collection of four stories, was highly acclaimed. In 1937 he moved to New York City, where he was an editor on the Communist newspaper, Daily Worker, but the publication of Native Son (1940) brought him overnight fame and freedom to write. A stage version (by Wright and Paul Green) followed in 1941 (and Wright himself later played the title role in a film version made in Argentina).
Black Boy, published in 1945 is a moving account of his childhood and youth in the South and depicts extreme poverty and his accounts of racial violence against blacks. The autobiography advanced Wright's reputation, but after living mainly in Mexico (1940–6) he had become so disillusioned with both the Communists and white America that he went off to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life as an expatriate. He continued to write novels, including The Outsider (1953) and The Long Dream (1958), and non-fiction, such as Black Power (1954) and White Man, Listen! (1957), and was regarded by African American writers, such as James Baldwin, as an inspiration. His naturalistic fiction no longer has the standing it once enjoyed, but his life and works remain exemplary.
Richard Nathaniel Wright died on November 28, 1960 in Paris, France.
© 2012 A+E Networks. All rights reserved.
profile name: Richard Wright profile occupation:
Your Connections
Sign in with Facebook to see how you and your friends are connected to famous icons.
Profile Connections
Included In These Groups
-
African-American Expats
View groupMany African-Americans left their country to escape the confines of racism, segregation and McCarthyism in the United States. As a result, an entirely new African-American subculture sprouted up in Europe, Africa and other countries abroad. A street in Paris is named after Josephine Baker, who found acceptance and fame in France that she couldn't achieve in the still-segregated United States. Marcus Garvey was a leader of the Back-to-Africa movement. And singer Nina Simone lived in several different countries, including Liberia, Switzerland, England and Barbados before eventually settling down in the South of France. Find out more about these African-American expats, and the new lives they made for themselves abroad, on Biography.com.
African-American Expats 9 people in this group
-
Black Writers
View groupBrowse through prominent figures in African-American literature such as Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison.
Black Writers 38 people in this group
-
Famous Virgoans 494 people in this group
