Description
In the 1960s, Charles Wright's (1932-2008) star was on the rise. After dropping out of high school and serving in the Korean War, the young Black writer landed in New York, where he was mentored by Norman Mailer, signed a book deal with a leading publisher, and was celebrated by the likes of Langston Hughes and James Baldwin.
Over the decades to follow, Wright would lead a peripatetic and at times precarious life, moving between Tangier, Veracruz, Paris, and New York, penning a regular column for the Village Voice, living off the goodwill of his friends, and battling addiction and, later, mental health issues. As W. Lawrence Hogue shows, Wright's innovative fiction stands apart, offering a different vision of outcast Black Americans in the postwar era and using satire to bring agency and humanity to working-class characters. This critical biography--the first devoted to Wright's significant but largely forgotten story--brings new attention to the writer's impressive body of work, in the context of a wild, but troubled, life.
Author: W. Lawrence Hogue
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 07/28/2023
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.98w x 0.71d
ISBN13: 9781625347077
ISBN10: 1625347073
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional | African American & Black
- Literary Criticism | American | African American & Black
- Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures
About the Author
W. LAWRENCE HOGUE is professor emeritus of English at the University of Houston and author of multiple books, including Postmodernism, Traditional Cultural Forms, and African American Narratives.