How does a desperately poor, half-educated black man in 20th century America transcend the brutality and racism of his childhood to become one of the most notable writers of his era? The Australian biographer Hazel Rowley (1951-2011) set out to unravel this story forty years after the death of Richard Wright (1908-1960) and this biography is the result.

Richard Wright, The Life and Times (2001) was Hazel Rowley's second biography after her award-winning biography of Christina Stead (1994, see my review). She went on to write Tête-à-tête: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre (2005) and Franklin & Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage (2010, see my review) before her untimely death in 2011. In the obituary by Margalit Fox for the New York Times, her attraction to writing the lives of charismatic outsiders is explained:

Ms. Rowley was often asked what united the seemingly diverse subjects of her books. “For those who have read all four, the thread is clear,” she wrote in an introductory passage on her Web site, (hazelrowley.com). “They were courageous people, who all, in some way, felt ‘outsiders’ in society. Above all, they were passionate people who cared about the world and felt angry about its injustices.” (NYT obituary, 19/3/2011)

The portrait of Richard Wright in Rowley's bio tells that story in fascinating detail. I haven't read Wright yet, though I have a copy of his memoir Black Boy on the TBR. Wright is a significant figure in American literature, transcending the trauma of his grandparents' slavery, a dysfunctional hyper-religious childhood, and limited education to become internationally famous and influential in changing attitudes. His writing made people realise the extent of racism in America and the damage that it caused to individuals and society.

He is most famous for his novel Native Son which was chosen as a Book of the Month in 1940 and became a best seller. Rowley tells the story of the passion which drove the portrayal of Bigger Thomas, a hoodlum from the black ghetto in Chicago, an unlikeable, tough bully who was full of fear and hate. Wright felt he had been naïve in his bestselling first book, Uncle Tom's Children, and had decided to write a book "so hard and so deep that they [Americans] would have to face it [racism] without the consolation of tears". So there is no idealism or sentimentality in Native Son. It features the angriest, most violent antihero ever to appear in black American literature.

Wright wanted to show that youths like Bigger were not inherently bad, that their intense frustration, hatred, and their crimes were a result of being shut out of American society. (p.151)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/06/12/richard-wright-the-life-and-times-by-hazel-r... ( )