Traces the authors coming of age in the Jim Crow-era South, a period during which he struggled to survive while journeying from innocence to adulthood. A sixtieth anniversary edition of the American autobiographical classic traces the authors poignant coming of age in the Jim Crow-era South, a period during which he struggled to survive while journeying from innocence to adulthood. By the author of Native Son. 15,000 first printing. A special 75th anniversary edition of Richard Wrights powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a new foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author&;s grandson.When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that &;if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy.&; Yet from 1975 to 1978, Black Boy was banned in schools throughout the United States for &;obscenity&; and &;instigating hatred between the races.&;Wright&;s once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him&;whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he may his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end of Black Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to &;hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo.&; Seventy-five year later, his words continue to reverberate. &;To read Black Boy is to stare into the heart of darkness,&; John Edgar Wideman writes in his foreword. &;Not the dark heart Conrad searched for in Congo jungles but the beating heart I bear.&; One of the great American memoirs, Wright&;s account is a poignant record of struggle and endurance&;a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.
