Native Son
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels
“If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
"The most powerful American novel to appear since The Grapes of Wrath." —The New Yorker
When it was first published in 1940, Native Son established Richard Wright as a literary star. In the decades since, Wright's masterpiece—hailed by Newsweek as "a novel of tremendous power and beauty"—has become a revered classic that remains as timely and relevant today as when it first appeared.
Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Native Son is the story of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man caught in a downward spiral after killing a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Written with the distinctive rhythm of a modern crime story, this formidable work is both a condemnation of social injustice and an unsparing portrait of the Black experience in America, revealing the tragic effect of poverty, racism, and hopelessness on the human spirit. "I wrote Native Son to show what manner of men and women our 'society of the majority' breeds, and my aim was to depict a character in terms of the living tissue and texture of daily consciousness," Wright explained.
Customer Reviews
Captivating
From cover to cover it had my attention! Love it!!
Incredible
The imagery and the vocal accuracies of the characters are outstanding . The voices of the Black characters remind me of my grandparents excellent listen.
Terrible narrator
The movie was good so I wanted to read the book. The narrator was just terrible. Sounded like a white guy trying to read a story by and about black culture and language. No authenticity. Terrible choice of narrator and difficult to listen to