Black Power

About the Book

Originally published in 1954, Richard Wright's Black Power is an extraordinary nonfiction work by one of America's premier literary giants of the twentieth century. An impassioned chronicle of the author's trip to Africa's Gold Coast before it became the free nation of Ghana, it speaks eloquently of empowerment and possibility, and resonates loudly to this day.Also included in this omnibus edition are two nonfiction works Wright produced around the time of Black Power. White Man, Listen! is a stirring collection of his essays on race, politics, and other essential social concerns ("Deserves to be read with utmost seriousness"-New York Times). The Color Curtain is an indispensable work urging the removal of the color barrier. It remains one of the key commentaries on the question of race in the modern era. ("Truth-telling will perhaps always be unpopular and suspect, but in The Color Curtain, as in all his later nonfiction, Wright did not hesitate to tell the truth as he saw it."-Amritjit Singh, Ohio University)

About the Author :
Richard Wright won 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 Son and Black Boy, are required reading in high schools and colleges across the nation. He died in 1960.

Review :
"A vivid and illuminating job of reportage." - New York Times (on The Color Curtain)
"Wright writes with emotional persuasiveness and power, relentlessly probing men, motives, myths, and history for a terrifying glimpse of a continent in turmoil." - Newsday (on Black Power)
"The reader of 'Black Power' will be grateful, no doubt, for many fascinating, and even illuminating glimpses of primitive tribal life in a country marked out for precocious political development." - New York Times (on Black Power)
"Wright's trilogy of books about decolonisation was the great achievement of his last decade." - London Review of Books
"A brilliantly written, highly emotional record by a sensitive and gifted reporter. It conveys eloquently the excitement of Bandung, the exuberance of peoples newly conscious that they were masters in their own house." - Christian Science Monitor (on The Color Curtain)
"Before it is too late, we would do well to read carefully and critically what Richard Wright has written." - San Francisco Chronicle (on Black Power)
"A book that needs to be pondered." - Kirkus Reviews (on The Color Curtain)
"Wright's most confessional account of the inner drama of decolonization." - London Review of Books (on White Man, Listen!)
"Intensely personal. . . . A wholly different portrait of Africa. . . . It must be accepted as an important if sometimes difficult contribution." - Kirkus Reviews (on Black Power)
"Deserves to be read with utmost seriousness, for the attitude it expresses has an intrinsic importance in our times." - New York Times (on White Man, Listen!)
"As reporting [Black Power] is a first-class job and gives the best picture I've seen of an extraordinary situation." - The Nation (on Black Power)
"Wright has the insight of a novelist and poet, so he is not satisfied with the usual sort of comment on race relations. He wants to show the often uncomprehending white man what he has done to hundreds of millions of another color, and what he can do today to redeem the situation." - Christian Science Monitor (on White Man, Listen!)