Richard Wright, daemonic genius
Subtitle: a portrait of the man, a critical look at his work
By: Margaret Walker.
Publisher: Amistad; Distributed by Random House
Published: 1993
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 444
ISBN-13: 9781567430042
Subjects: Wright, Richard, 1908-1960.; Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography.; African American authors -- Biography.; African Americans in literature.
Genres: Biography.
Description: Richard Wright was first a black man and second a writer. The life of this black man is inextricably bound to his writing. Author of 16 books, his first published volume appeared in 1938, when he was 30 years old. When he died at age 52, 22 years later, he had published a dozen books. I have divided rights life and work into five periods: his first 19 years in the violent white South, including his childhood and adolescence; 10 years of maturation in Chicago, when he became a revolutionary, a bohemian, and a professional writer; 10 years of professional success and personal frustration in New York; 10 years of seeking freedom and Paris; and, finally, his last two or three years of trauma and tragedy. Then, I have followed a general outline of relating his published works -- books, articles, poetry, and speeches -- to his life. Each period of his life was dominated by a set of ideas and philosophies that he personally embraced and then inculcated in his writing. A man motivated by ideas and novelist of ideas, his intellectual stature is a first consideration. His intellectual development and his Weltanschauung, or worldview, place him in the forefront of 20th century life and culture, and it is in this area that this book seeks to break ground. - Preface.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-411) and index.
Originally published: New York : Warner Books, c1988.
Table of contents: title: Abbreviations : key to Wright's works; title: Introduction; title: Part one.; title: The young Wright : nineteen years in the violent white South, 1908-1927; title: A certain place : Mississippi, a climate for genius; title: A definite time : 1908; title: A boy in rompers : angry, bitter and brash; title: The broken home : trauma and the young psyche; title: A boy in knee-pants : reading, writing, and hunger; title: Jackson, Mississippi : fanatically religious relatives, bourgeois Negroes, and racist White folks; title: From Jackson to Memphis : big boy leaves home, almost a man; title: Richard Wright : a gift from the South; title: Part two.; title: Wright begins to sing his broken song : ten Chicago years, 1927-1937; title: A callow youth becomes a man; title: A political animal; title: The Chicago Post Office and the young lions; title: "To be young, gifted, and Black"; title: The WPA : "A Stairway to the Stars"; title: The assault : punk hunting and the Bohemians; title: Daemonic genius and the creative process : "Margaret, if a voice speaks within you, you can live"; title: "I'm off tonight for New York"; title: Part three.; title: Wright's Medusa head : the New York years, 1937-1947; title: Medusa is a woman; title: A man of purpose, will, and reason; title: The Faustian man of success; title: Native Son; title: Fame and fortune; title: Marriage and the medusa head; title: Horace Cayton, Richard Wright, and the Cayton-Warner research file; title: Twelve Million Black Voices; title: An interlude : three pieces; title: Black Boy : autobiography as social history, art, or catharsis?; title: Property, racism, fascism, and the war ends; title: Paris in the spring : tra la, la, la; title: Part four.; title: Wright's political paradox : ten Paris years, 1947-1957; title: The twisted torch : "I lift my lamp beside the golden door"; title: The international man; title: The Third World : men of African and Pan-Africanism; title: Making the movie Native Son; title: "I choose exile"; title: The secular man and The Outsider; title: Black Power : Africa and Pan Africanism; title: Savage Holiday : a Freudian nightmare; title: Pagan Spain : the Spanish Revolution and the Roman Catholic Church; title: Confrontation in Asia : The Bandung Conference and The Color Curtain; title: The farm at Ailly, Normandy : a retreat; title: Présence Africaine : cultural Black Nationalism, and the role and education of the artist; title: White man, listen! : The Weltanschauung of a twentieth century man; title: Part five.; title: The return of Mephistopheles : Wright's final years, 1958-1960; title: A fluttering of angel's wings; title: Perimeters and parameters of political intrigue; title: 1958 : the failure of The Long Dream and "Island of Hallucinations"; title: 1959 : the fractured personality : a wounded man; title: The crumbling marriage; title: 1960 : Eight Men, a lifetime of stories and storytelling by a man in anguish; title: The mystery of Richard Wright's death; title: Notes; title: A bibliographical essay; title: A guide to Wright studies; title: Keynote speech given at the International Symposium on Richard Wright, Mississippi's Native Son; title: Afterword : Ellen Wright v. Warner Books, Inc. and Margaret Walker