Native Son (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions)

Wright, Dr Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061148504 ISBN 13: 9780061148507

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2008

Now an HBO Film!

"If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son." - Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

This edition--the restored text of Native Son established by the Library of America--also includes an essay by Wright titled, How "Bigger" was Born, along with notes on the text.

Review:

"A novel of tremendous power and beauty."--Newsweek

"It's difficult to write temperately of a book which abounds in such excitement, in so profound an understanding of human frailty."--New York Herald Tribune

"For terror in narrative, utter and compelling, there are few pages in modern American literature that will compare with this story."--Saturday Review

"Richard Wright's masterpiece . . . taught me that it's all right to have passion within your work, that you don't need to shy away from politics in order to write fiction."--Gloria Naylor

"The most powerful American novel to appear since The Grapes of Wrath. . . so overwhelming is its central drive, so gripping its mounting intensity."--New Yorker

"An enormously stirring novel. . . a story to trouble midnight and the noon's repose and to haunt the imagination."--New York Times

"A powerfully blunt novel."--Washington Post

Book Description:

Richard Wright's brutal and gripping novel was a huge hit - selling at a rate of 2,000 copies a day - on first publication in 1940.