Richard Wright's Black Boy (American Hunger)

This casebook gathers together the most important critical responses to Richard Wright''s autobiography. It includes a 1945 interview with Richard Wright contemporary reviews of Black Boy written by W.E.B. Du Bois Lionel Trilling Mary McCarthy and Ralph Ellison and eight critical essays. These essays address a range of topics including the circumstances of the book''s original publication in 1945; the relationship between the novel and Wright''s actual biography; the African-American autobiographical tradition; the influences of various writers and literary movements on Black Boy; and the impact of African-American vernacular and oral performance on Wright''s autobiography.