| Richard Wright |
The Bleak Prescience of Richard Wright
A previously unpublished novel invites a reassessment of a writer criticized for his doctrinaire pessimism about race in America.
This article was published online on May 7, 2021.
Richard wright, the father figure of African American literature, both nurtured and was rejected by his two most conspicuous heirs, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. Wright, who took Ellison under his wing in New York in the late 1930s, told his acolyte to stop copying him, that he was mimicking, not cultivating his own style. Ellison responded that he was trying to learn to write well by imitating his mentor. That was when they were close. Baldwin, too, started out as a pupil and an admirer who saw Wright poised to be the greatest Black writer in the United States.