The Critical Response to Richard Wright: (Critical Responses in Arts and Letters)

Richard Wright is widely recognized as one of the most important African-American writers and as a significant 20th-century author. With the publication of Native Son in 1940, Wright established his enduring reputation as a man of letters. With the immense critical success of Native Son, Wright went on to author Black Boy, The Outsider, and Eight Men. His writings reflect his experiences growing up in the poverty and racial strife of the South, and his thoughts on major social issues. This volume traces the critical reception of Wright's major works, from the publication of Native Son to the present day. An introductory chapter overviews the critical response to his writings, while two biographical chapters discuss his writings in relation to his life. Sections are then devoted to Native Son, Black Boy, and The Outsider. Each of these sections presents reviews and articles reflecting the best criticism of Wright's works. A final section, Richard Wright Today, offers contemporary assessments of Wright's reputation, as well as fascinating discussions of the recent Library of America editions of his works.

Table of Contents:
Series Forward by Cameron Northouse Chronology Introduction Bibliographical Overview Richard Wright: Black Boy from America's Black Belt and Urban Ghettos by Blyden Jackson Native Son: The Personal, Social, and Political Background by Keneth Kinnamon Native Son 1940 Review of Native Son by Henry Seidel Canby Review of Native Son by Charles Poore Uneven Effect by Howard Mumford Jones A Powerful Novel About a Boy from Chicago's Black Belt by Margaret Wallace Review of Native Son by Samuel Sillen Wright's Invisible Native Son by Donald B. Gibson Richard Wright's Women Characters and Inequality by Sylvia Keady Wright's Native Son and Two Novels by Zola: A Comparative Study by Robert Butler Black Boy 1945 Review of Black Boy by Orville Prescott Black Hunger by Charles Lee Richard Wright Looks Back by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois Richard Wright Adds a Chapter to Our Bitter Chronicle Creation of the Self in Richard Wright's Black Boy by Yoshinobu Hakutani Sociology of an Existence: Richard Wright and the Chicago School by Carla Cappetti Introduction to HarperPerennial Edition of Black Boy (American Hunger) by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. The Outsider 1953 Review of The Outsider by Orville Prescott Review of The Outsider by Arna Bontemps Review of The Outsider by Lorraine Hansberry Richard Wright and the French Existentialists by Michel Fabre Richard Wright's The Outsider: Existentialist Exemplar or Critique? by Amritijit Singh Eight Men 1961 Lives of More than Quiet Desperation by Richard Sullivan Review of Eight Men by Saunders Redding Richard Wright: A Word of Farewell by Irving Howe The Paradoxical Structure of Richard Wright's "The Man Who Lived Underground" by Patricia D. Watkins Thematic and Formal Unity of Richard Wright's Eight Men by Robert Butler Richard Wright Today Too Honest for His Own Time by Arnold Rampersad The Problematic Texts of Richard Wright by James W. Tuttleton The Library of America Edition of Native Son by Keneth Kinnamon The Library of American Edition of The Outsider by Yoshinobu Hakutani Authority, Gender, and Fiction by Eugene E. Miller The Invisible Woman in Wright's Rite of Passage by Robert Butler Selected Bibliography Index

About the Author :
ROBERT J. BUTLER is Professor of English at Canisius College, where he is also Director of College Honors. He has published numerous articles on African-American literature and contemporary American authors.