His powerful eloquent work examined the injustices AfricanAmericans face in a white society He won immediate fame for his first novel Native Son 1940 It tells the story of Bigger Thomas a young chauffeur whose inarticulate rage over his lot ultimately erupts into violence Native Son was adapted into a play directed by Orson Welles in 1941 filmed in 1951 with Wright himself playing Bigger and again in 1986 Wrights other books include Black Boy 1945 an autobiography the novels The Outsider 1953 and The Long Dream 1958 the story collections Uncle Toms Children 1938 and Eight Men 1961 and the philosophical volumes Black Power 1954 and White Man Listen 1957 Richard Nathaniel Wright was born near Natchez Mississippi Largely selfeducated he began to write after moving to Chicago around 1927 He was a member of the Communist Party from 1932 to 1944 he later wrote of his disillusionment with that system in The God That Failed 1949 a collection of essays by former party members Wright lived in Paris from 1946 until his death A second book of memoirs American Hunger was published posthumously in 1977
HydraHD