Richard Wright - Introduction and Biography

                Richard Nathan Wright was born on September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi.  He was the son of Nathan Wright who was an illiterate sharecropper.  His mother was Ella Wilson Wright and she was a schoolteacher.  He was also the grandson of slaves.  His father deserts the family for another woman and Ella works as a cook to support the family.  Richard entered school at Howe Institute in September 1915.  In early 1916 his mother fell ill and his father, Nathan, sent his mother to care for the family.  Richard and his brother had to live in an orphanage for a short time when their grandmother left until their mother could have them live with her parents in Jackson, Mississippi.  Wright entered school again in the fall of 1918 but he was forced to leave after a few months because his mother’s poor health forced him to earn money to support the family.  Richard entered the 5^th grade in Jackson at the age of 13 and was soon placed in 6^th grade.  He delivered newspapers and worked briefly with a traveling insurance salesman.  He managed to earn enough money to but textbooks, food, and clothes by running errands for white people.  He read novels, magazines, and anything else that he could get his hands on.  He wrote his first short story, “The Voodoo of Half-Acre,” in the winter and it was published in the spring of 1924 in the Jackson Southern Register.  He graduated valedictorian of his 9^th grade class in 1925.  Only after a few weeks in high school he had to quit school to earn money to support his brother Leon Alan had returned from Detroit.  There were times that he worked two or three jobs at a time.  After the stock market crash, he lost his job at the post office but he began a novel in 1930 which reflected his experience in the post office.  He had the opportunity to write through the Federal Writer’s Project.  He also became a member of the Communist Party and published poetry and short stories in such magazines as Left Front, Anvil, and New Masses.  His mother dies on January 14, 1959.  Wright dies on November 28, 1960 of a heart attack.  He is cremated along with a copy of ‘Black Boy’ on December 3, 1960.  His ashes remain at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.  In 1977 his autobiographical, American Hunger, which narrates his experience after moving to the North, was published.  Some of the more open passages that dealt with race, sex, and politics have been omitted before their original publication.                                                 

"Richard Wright Biography." Mathematics Department. Web. 28 Mar. 2011.