Introduction Part 1: Texts and Contexts Richard Wright: A Brief Biography. The Voices of Native Son. The Dostoevskian Voice. The Transplantation of the Blues. Bigger’s Vernacular Voice. Social Determinism: An Anti-American Accent? Bigger: Silenced by Whiteness? Chronology Part 2: Critical History First Responses: James Baldwin. First Responses: Ralph Ellison and Irving Howe. Feminist Readings. The Black Atlantic and Beyond Part 3: Critical Readings Many Thousands Gone James Baldwin (1951) The Shadow of the White Woman: Richard Wright and the Book-of-the-Month Club Hazel Rowley(1999) From No Man's Land to Mother-Land: Emasculation and Nationalism in Richard Wright's Depression Era Urban Novels Anthony Dawahare (1999) Slouching toward Beastliness: Richard Wright's Anatomy of Thomas Dixon Clare Eby (2001) Invented by Horror: The Gothic and African American Literary Ideology in Native Son James Smethurst (2001) Part 4: Web Resources and Further Reading
Biography
Andrew Warnes is a lecturer in American literature at the University of Leeds. He has published on the novels of Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison.
'What emerges clearly... is the extent to which the Routledge guides demonstrate the value of historicised readings, without burdening the first-time reader with too great an emphasis on the material reality with which the featured authors engage.' - Rod Mengham, The Times Higher Educational Supplement
