Richard Wright has long been at or near the top of the list of authors that I cant seem to get away from, in terms of reading, writing, teaching, and thinking....It goes back to one day in eighth grade when I was sick home from school, half-delirious with fever and read his collection *Uncle Toms Children* (it wasnt assigned for school, my dad had it on the shelf) cover to cover in what remains one of the most vivid and dream like reading experiences of my childhood. Lately, Ive been returning to this early volume and Wrights work more generally, in increasingly serious and scholarly ways. (Some of you know this!) Wright used to be a more marginal figure in my formal research work--I never was assigned a single work by him in undergrad or grad school, that I can recall, and my dissertation focused on radical and pro-communist *white* writers rather than African American lit--but lately hes been growing more and more central. And so, to come to the point: This past week I made a decision (one I feel in me bones as they say): I am going to make myself into a serious Richard Wright critic. (Just ask Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Alibris, whose e-shelves on Wright I just unloaded.) Look out Hazel Rowley, Paul Gilroy, Cedric Robinson, Sherley Anne Williams, Richard Yarborough, Michael Fabre, Arnold Rampersad, and Abdul JanMohamed. Im in the game. ;) New to Wright? Check out this mostly excellent centennial review of his career by stellar left-lit scholar Alan Wald. Know of some Wright-related work that warrants mention? Send it on! solidarity-us.org/site/node/2031
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 16:28:29 +0000
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