African American writer and poet Richard Wright was the son of a sharecropper and went to school only through
the ninth grade, but published his first short story at the age of 16. His autobiography, Black Boy, was published
in 1945. The writer and poet born Richard Nathaniel Wright near Natchez, Mississippi was the grandson of slaves
and the son of a sharecropper. He went to school in Jackson, Mississippi while working at various jobs in the South.
In 1927 he went to Chicago and worked briefly in the post office, but forced on relief by the Depression, he joined
the Communist Party (1932). With two more minor works published, he found employment with the Federal Writers
Project, and his Uncle Tom's Children (1938), a collection of four stories, was highly acclaimed. In 1937 he moved
to New York City, where he was an editor on the communist newspaper, Daily Worker, but the publication of Native
Son (1940) brought him overnight fame and the freedom to write. A stage version (by Wright and Paul Green)
followed in 1941 (and Wright himself later played the title role in a film version made in Argentina). Black Boy,
published in 1945 is a moving account of his childhood and youth in the South and depicts extreme poverty and his
accounts of racial violence against blacks. The autobiography advanced Wright's reputation, but after living
mainly in Mexico (1940-46) he had become so disillusioned with both the Communists and white America that he
went off to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life as an expatriate. He continued to write novels, including The
Outsider (1953) and The Long Dream (1958), and nonfiction, such as Black Power (1954) and White Man, Listen!
(1957), and was regarded by African American writers, such as James Baldwin, as an inspiration. His naturalistic
fiction no longer has the standing it once enjoyed, but his life and works remain exemplary. Richard Nathaniel
Wright died on November 28, 1960 in Paris, France.

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