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News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

not-for-profit - a workers'co-op - committed to social justice | 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY - 0151 708 7270

Black Boy

by Richard Wright - £9.99  Vintage (2000)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9780099285069 | ISBN 10: 0099285061

First published in 1945, Black Boy remains one of the most moving and shaming records ever written of life under a system only one step from slavery.
 
At four years of age, the young Richard Wright set fire to his home in a moment of boredom; at five his father deserted the family, by six Richard was - temporarily - an alcholic. Moved from home to home, from brick tenement to orphanage, a grandmother in Jackson, and an aunt in Arkansas, he had had, by the age of twelve, only one year's formal education. It was in saloons, railroad yards and streets that he learned the facts about life under white subjection, about fear, hunger and hatred, while his mother's long illness taught him about suffering.
 
The same alertness and independence that made him the 'bad boy' of his family and the victim of endless beatings and admonitions lost him numerous jobs. Gradually he learned how to survive in a world of white hostility, secretly satisfying his craving for books and knowledge until the time came when he could follow his dream of justice and opportunity in the north.

(Price & availability last checked: April 2018)

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In booklists: Black American History,
In categories: History & Biography, Black, Asian & Other Diasporas,

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