Richard Wright: Early Works (LOA #55)

Includes Native Son,now an HBO original movie by Rashid Johnsonwith a screenplay by Suzan-Lori Parks and starring Ashton Sanders. Native Son exploded on the American literary scene in 1940. The story of Bigger Thomasa young black man living in the rawnoisycrowded slums of ChicagoΓÇÖs South Sidecaptured the hopes and yearningsthe pain and rage of black Americans with an unprecedented intensity and vividness. The text printed in this volume restores the changes and cutsΓÇöincluding the replacement of an entire sceneΓÇöthat Wright was forced to make by book club editors who feared offending their readers. The unexpurgated version of WrightΓÇÖs electrifying novel shows his determination to write honestly about his controversial protagonist. As he wrote in the essay ΓÇ£How ΓÇÿBiggerΓÇÖ Was BornΓÇ¥ which accompanies the novel: ΓÇ£I became convinced that if I did not write Bigger as I saw and felt himIΓÇÖd be acting out of fear.ΓÇ¥ This volume also contains WrightΓÇÖs first novelLawd Today!published posthumously in 1963and his collection of storiesUncle TomΓÇÖs Childrenwhich appeared in 1938. Lawd Today! interweaves news bulletinssongsexuberant wordplayand scenes of confrontation and celebration into a kaleidoscopic chronicle of the events of one dayΓÇöFebruary 12ΓÇöin the life of a black Chicago postal worker. The text for this edition reinstates WrightΓÇÖs stylistic experimentsand the novel emerges as a far livelier work of the imagination. Uncle TomΓÇÖs Children first brought Wright to national attention when it received the Story Prize for the best work submitted to the Federal WritersΓÇÖ Project. The characters in these tales struggle to survive the cruelty of racism in the Southas Wright asks ΓÇ£what quality of will must a Negro possess to live and die with dignity in a country that denied his humanity.ΓÇ¥ All five stories Wright included in the 1940 second edition are published in this volumealong with his sardonic autobiographical essay ΓÇ£The Ethics of Living Jim Crow.ΓÇ¥ Richard Wright was ΓÇ£forged in injustice as a sword is forgedΓÇ¥ wrote Ernest Hemingway. With passionate honesty and couragehe confronted the terrible effects of prejudice and intolerance and created works that explore the deepest conflicts of the human heart. This Library of America edition presents for the first time WrightΓÇÖs works in the form in which he intended them to be read. The authoritative new textsbased on WrightΓÇÖs original typescripts and proofsreveal the full range and power of his achievement as an experimental stylist and as a fiery prophet of the tragic consequences of racism in American society. The volume includes notes on significant changes in WrightΓÇÖs text and a detailed chronology of his life. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nationΓÇÖs literary heritage by publishingand keeping permanently in printAmericaΓÇÖs best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to dateauthoritative editions that average 1000 pages in lengthfeature cloth coverssewn bindingsand ribbon markersand are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.