The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright

doi:10.1017/9781108567510

Hailed as 'the father of black literature in the twentieth century', Richard Wright was an iconoclast, an intellectual of towering stature, whose multidisciplinary erudition rivals only that of W. E. B. Du Bois. This collection captures Wright's immense power, which has made him a beacon for writers across decades, from the civil rights era to today. Individual essays examine Wright's art as central to his intellectual life and shed new light on his classic texts - Native Son and Black Boy. Other essays turn to his short fiction, and non-fiction as well as his lesser-known work in journalism and poetry, paying particular attention to manuscripts in Wright's archive - unpublished letters and novels, plans for multivolume works - that allow us to see the depth and expansiveness of his aesthetic and political vision. Exploring how Wright's expatriation to France facilitated a broadening of this vision, contributors challenge the idea that expatriation led to Wright's artistic decline.

‘This is a welcome addition to the scholarship on Wright (1908–60), especially in that it attempts to revise Wright’s literary legacy … All the essays are thoughtful and well researched. Two of the more outstanding submissions are Kathryn Roberts’s 'Outside Joke: Humorlessness and Masculinity in Richard Wright' and Ernest Julius Mitchell’s 'Tenderness in Early Richard Wright'. These essays reframe Wright's intentions and explode long-held myths of his views on gender and sexuality … Highly Recommended’

A. S. Newson-Horst Source: Choice

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Contents

The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright
pp i-i
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The Cambridge Companion To Richard Wright - Series page
pp ii-ii
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The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright - Title page
pp iii-iii
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Copyright page
pp iv-iv
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Dedication
pp v-vi
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Contents
pp vii-viii
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Contributors
pp ix-xi
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Acknowledgments
pp xii-xii
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Chronology
pp xiii-xxii
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Introduction
pp 1-20
Richard Wright’s Art and Politics
- By Glenda R. Carpio
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Part I - Native Son in Jim Crow America
pp 21-118
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1 - The Literary Ecology of Native Son and Black Boy
pp 23-38
- By George Hutchinson
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2 - Richard Wright’s Planned Incongruity
pp 39-57
Black Boy as “Modern Living”
- By Jay Garcia
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3 - Marxism, Communism, and Richard Wright’s Depression-Era Work
pp 58-73
- By Nathaniel F. Mills
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4 - Rhythms of Race in Richard Wright’s “Big Boy Leaves Home”
pp 74-86
- By Robert B. Stepto
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5 - Sincere Art and Honest Science
pp 87-102
Richard Wright and the Chicago School of Sociology
- By Gene Andrew Jarrett
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6 - Outside Joke
pp 103-118
Humorlessness and Masculinity in Richard Wright
- By Kathryn S. Roberts
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Part II - “I Choose Exile”
pp 119-216
Wright Abroad
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7 - Freedom in a Godless and Unhappy World
pp 121-138
Wright as Outsider
- By Tommie Shelby
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8 - Richard Wright, Paris Noir, and Transatlantic Networks
pp 139-151
A Book History Perspective
- By Cossu-Beaumont Laurence
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9 - Expatriation in Wright’s Late Fiction
pp 152-163
- By Alice Mikal Craven
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10 - Richard Wright’s Globalism
pp 164-184
- By Nicholas T Rinehart
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11 - Richard Wright’s Transnationalism and His Unwritten Magnum Opus
pp 185-198
- By Stephan Kuhl
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12 - Tenderness in Early Richard Wright
pp 199-216
- By Ernest Julius Mitchell
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Further Reading
pp 217-226
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Index
pp 227-239
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Cambridge Companions to … - Series page
pp 240-244
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