Richard Wright was the son of an illiterate sharecropper. He was brought up in a dysfunctional home where he suffered poverty and abandonment. He became an essential figure in the development of African American literature, and has been called one of the most powerful writers of the twentieth century. Although Richard Wright experienced a poverty-stricken childhood, he managed to gain a partial education and finally, achieved recognition as a great protest writer.

Richard Wright suffered a poverty-stricken childhood. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father worked as a sharecropper until Wright was three, when the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Wright and his younger brother hungered for affection, understanding, and attention, as well as for food. They would comb their neighborhood begging for food and money to help his family survive. Wright was also forced to steal in order to eat. Critics say that Wright's behavior was as a result of his father's abandonment.

At the age of five or six, Richard's father deserted the family, making them victims of extreme poverty. Soon after, his mother suffered paralytic strokes that left her dependant on her own mo

However, it was Native Son (published in 1940) that won Wright critical and public acclaim. The book sold over two hundred thousand copies in less than a month and soared to the top of the best seller's list. It became the first book by an African -American author to be a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Wright was being compared to famous writers such as Theodore Dreiser and John Steinbeck. He received the Springarn Medal in the early 1940s after which he began to write the autobiographical account of his childhood.

Wright changed the principles governing African-American writing. His books, Native Son and Black Boy, continue to be used in high school and colleges throughout America. He has influenced many upcoming writers, as well as many upcoming African-Americans.

Kinnamon, Keneth. A Study in Literature and Society. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1972. 118-152.

Margolies, Edward. A Critical Study of 20th Century Negro American Authors. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968.

Richard worked many odd jobs in places that were unsuitable for a child his age. He worked in saloons, brothels, and even as a scavenger. His jobs in the South were marked by harassment by whites and his own disdain for what segregation and racism had done to his family. He felt that his family was forced to accept poverty. He resolved to migrate to the North, to Chicago in 1927 at the age of nineteen and found a job as a postal clerk. This was his third move in nineteen years (Wertham 321-325).

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