The List

(page 6 of 10)

A CITY  DIVIDED

Native Son (1940), by Richard Wright

"The moment a situation became so that it exacted something of him, he rebelled. That was the way he lived; he passed his days trying to defeat or gratify powerful impulses in a world he feared."

The story: A young black man from Chicago's South Side ends up on trial for murder before a white jury, raising questions of who's to blame.

Why the book resonates: Like Huckleberry Finn in its day, Native Son is "an unavoidable touchstone for 20th-century writing about race in America," says Kenneth Warren, one of the country's preeminent authorities on Wright and a professor at the University of Chicago. Wright skipped the pleasantries and painted 1930s Chicago as a city with a sharp racial divide. The novel, Warren says, "shows some of the devastation that occurred as a result of the city's inadequate—and sometimes straightforwardly hostile—response to the northern migration of blacks." Wright was especially critical of the city's ghettoization, which kept blacks clustered in certain neighborhoods—a setup, Warren notes, that still strikes a familiar chord.

The author (1908-60): Came to Hyde Park in his 20s. Became acquainted with the impoverished South Side while working for the post office and as a ditch digger. Hooked up with the Communist Party, then left for New York, where he wrote Native Son; it became America's first best-selling book by a black author.
—M. B.

 
 

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