Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century Book

Series Editors' Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction Alice Mikal Craven William E. Dow 1

Part I (Re)Placing Richard Wright 9

1 From New Chicago Renaissance from Wright to Fair Modern and Postmodern Eden: Richard Wright R. Baxter Miller 11

2 Wright among the "G-Men": How the FBI Framed Paris Noir William J. Maxwell 27

3 A Father's Law, 1950s Masculinity, and Richard Wright's Agony over Integration Leonard Cassuto 39

4 Seeking Salvation in a Naturalistic Universe: Richard Wright's Use of His Southern Religious Background in Black Boy (American Hunger) Robert J. Butler 55

Part II Taking Sides: Racism and Spatial Dimensions 69

5 "White People to Either Side": Native Son and the Poetics of Space Isabel Soto 71

6 Becoming Richard Wright: Space and the WPA Thadious M. Davis 83

Part III Wright: Pulp and Media, Reality and Fiction 101

7 Savage Holiday: Documentary Noir and True Crime in 12 Million Black Voices Paula Kabinowitz 105

8 Richard Wright's A Father's Law and Black Metropolis: Intellectual Growth and Literary Vision Joyce Ann Joyce 129

9 A Queer Finale: Sympathy and Privacy, in Wright's A Father's Law John C. Charles 147

Part IV Wright: New Comparative Frameworks, Transnational Boundaries 167

10 Changing Texts: Censorship, "Reality," and Fiction in Native Son Claudine Raynaud 171

11 "The Astonishing Humanity": Domestic Discourses in the Friendship and Fiction of Richard Wright and Carson McCullers Julieann Veronica Ulin 193

12 When Wright Bid McKay Break Bread: Tracing Black Transnational Genealogy Gary Holcomb 215

13 The Political Art of Wright's "Fire and Cloud" Robert Shulman 235

14 Richard Wright and the CircumCaribbean John Lowe 249

Afterword 267

Volume Bibliography 273

Contributors 279

Index 285