Byline, Richard Wright
Subtitle: articles from the Daily worker and New masses
By: edited by Earle V. Bryant
Contributors: Bryant, Earle V., editor
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Columbia [Mo.]
Language: eng; dut
Number of pages: 282
ISBN-13: 9780826220202
Subjects: New masses; Communist Journalism; Intellectual life; Daily worker (Chicago, Ill.); African American journalists; African American communists
Description: A writer perhaps best known for the revolutionary works Black Boy and Native Son, Richard Wright also worked as a journalist during one of the most explosive periods of the 20th century. From 1937 to 1938, Wright turned out more than two hundred articles for the Daily Worker, the newspaper that served as the voice of the American Communist Party. Byline, Richard Wright assembles more than one hundred of those articles plus two of Wright's essays from New Masses, revealing to readers the early work of an American icon. As both reporter and Harlem bureau chief, Wright covered most of the major and minor events, personalities, and issues percolating through the local, national, and global scenes in the late 1930s. Because the Daily Worker wasn't a mainstream paper, editors gave Wright free rein to cover the stories he wanted, and he tackled issues that no one else covered. Although his peers criticized his journalistic writing, these articles offer revealing portraits of Depression-era America rendered in solid, vivid prose. Featuring Earle V. Bryant's informative, detailed introduction and commentary contextualizing the compiled articles, Byline, Richard Wright provides insight into the man before he achieved fame as a novelist, short story writer, and internationally recognized voice of social protest. This collection opens new territory in Wright studies, and fans of Wright's novels will delight in discovering the lost material of this literary great
Notes: A selection of the newspaper articles written by Wright in 1937 and 1938 for the Daily worker and the New masses.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-268) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface; title: Acknowledgments; title: Introduction : arrival; title: The shame spot of New York; title: The winds of war; title: Heroes sung and silent; title: A burst of fists on a new horizon; title: Art for life's sake; title: Conclusion : departure