Talk:Richard Wright (author)

South Side Writers Group
This article should mention somewhere that Wright founded the South Side Writers Group, an influential group of Chicago writers including Lorraine Hansberry, among others. I would insert the information myself if I knew more about the group.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 160.39.252.117 (talk) 03:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

comment
Novelist Richard Wright's first autobiographical account, Black Boy, discussed his life before the move to Chicago as opposed to after the move. So, I think that sentence needs to be fixed.

I have been reading blackboy for an english class, and it describes his life before and after the move to Chicago, although the book is divided into two sections

Removed the word 'unexpectedly' from the final sentence, as it had an 'unexpectedly' comic effect: as in - Richard Wright died in Paris of a heart attack, unexpectedly, at the age of 52. 203.173.49.149 09:07, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Please don't remove my mention of his earning of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Uncle Tom’s Children. Information has to be known, for if It wasn't for the Guggenheim Fellowship, he would not be as great as he turned up to be. Thank you.

Problem with birth date
I have materials stating Richard Wright's birth year as 1906. Can anyone clarify?


 * Can you be more specific about the nature of your materials? I've verified the b. date in a couple of places, including the Library of America edition of his complete works. Gamaliel [[Image:Watchmensmiley20.gif]] 18:18, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Age 1 & ?/12 years on 1910 census. Family was boarding at 272 Washington Avenue, Memphis. Also father Nathan was still with the family and brother Allen is 6 months old and born in Mississippi.Javadane 17:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

No, its 1908 in most sources.72.196.229.15 20:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

"Semi Autobiographical"
Black Boy is presented as an autobiogrophy and the library of congress calls it "a classic of American autobiogrophy." Unless anyone has evidence that portions of the book are fabricated, it should read "autobiographical," not "semi-autobiographical."


 * You're right about this. I've read it and I've never read anything about this that indicated it was semi- and not fully autobigraphical. Gamaliel 03:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * See "Black Boy: Richard Wright's 'Tragic Sense of Life,' " an essay which discusses the fact that "Richard Wright's friends and critics alike persistently remark that Wright did not actually experience a childhood like that depicted in his autobiography." Another source would be "Telling lies in modern American autobiography" by Timothy Dow Adams. For example the scene in which Wright's Uncle Hoskins drives into the Mississippi River is actually an event which happened to Ralph Ellison. This source also discusses the fact that Wright actually delivered an edited version of his own valedictorian speech as a compromise with his junior high school principle. Amy Hungerford, in her Yale literature course "American Novel since 1945" also discusses the falsehoods and exaggerations in Wright's autobiography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.112.173.3 (talk) 14:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

PAGE NOT MOVED -- as there was no consensus for the move per discussion below. --Philip Baird Shearer 14:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Richard Wright (author) → Richard Nathaniel Wright — Title is unique when middle name is included, eliminating the need for the parenthetical addition. —Colin MacLaurin 17:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC) moved from uncontroversial by Sig Pig  |SEND - OVER  02:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Survey

 * Add  # Support   or   # Oppose   on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~ .  Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in opposition to the move

 * 1) Oppose for the same reason as last time; proposal still violates WP:COMMONNAME. -- Sig Pig  |SEND - OVER 02:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose Yes it does. Who ever calls him this? Aside from his mother when she wanted his attention.... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose per Sig. Yes, the middle name would make it unique but (as Sept so humorously put it) no one calls him by this name and it contrary to every naming policy. 205.157.110.11 03:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose Policy advises against adding middle names or initials for disambiguation purposes, when those are not commonly used. However, there is a case to be made that he is the primary usage (indeed, the page seems to have been moved here from the undabbed form), and I would be willing to support a move back to the dab page's location, unless someone makes the case that the other Richard Wrights have achieved enough collective prominence to match the author. -- Groggy Dice T | C 16:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think he should be moved back here. I'd never heard of him until I typed in Richard Wright, looking for the Pink Floyd keyboard player. This seems like yet another example of the attempted americanisation of Wikipedia to me. Jcuk (talk) 12:03, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Add any additional comments:


 * How is he shown on his books ? Do any of them use Nathaniel ? -- Beardo 06:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I added him to the agnostics category since his books suggest it.You very nice place 12:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

clean up
This page needs some clean up, it states the same things twice. It looks like two people wrote it, and rather than collaborating, they just put everything in...

When did he move to Memphis?
In Black Boy, he wrote that he stayed in Mississippi until he became independent and then moved to Memphis. cecikierk

Suggested Move
I suggest the article be moved back here from the main name space. I don't doubt his notability, but I DO doubt he's so much more notable than the other notable Richard Wrights that he deserves the main name space. That should be redirected to the already existing disambig page. Jcuk (talk) 00:58, 6 August 2008 (UT

Black Boy as biographical source.
There are a great deal of sources which claim that Black Boy is not a totally accurate source of biographical information for Richard Wright. An important one is "Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiography" by Timothy Dow Adams, which claims that many of the book's events are fabricated (the Uncle Hoskins event happened to Ralph Ellison) or altered (Wright delivered a compromised version of his junior high school valedictorian speech).

See this link: http://books.google.com/books?id=p6YBbKOR81sC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=uncle+hoskins+ralph+ellison&source=bl&ots=--9r76k3NX&sig=I6D_aqaY8wH9wchRSJDqQnDG2kI&hl=en&ei=pGZsStLJM4H8tge25vmaAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

The "Early Life" version of the article in particular needs to be altered to reflect this, and biographical information from another source is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.112.173.3 (talk) 14:35, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Was Richard Wright influenced by Nietzsche?
Richard Wright was the first African American to write a novel or book

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Richard Wright which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 21:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Redundant Picture
The picture of the memorial to Wright in Natchez, MS appears twice; or rather, there are two pictures of the same object in two different sections. Someone should decide which one to keep, and where to put it. 66.41.216.19 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

"helped change race relations"? Do tell.
I'd really like to know how his work "helped change race relations" in the U.S. Any proof? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.151.233 (talk) 07:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

What is "plantation"
Wright is described as being from "Plantation" as if that meant something. Obviously being born on a plantation is meaningful, but that doesn't make it a specific place. I've read this as "Rucker's Plantation" in a Black Boy edition, but I still don't see how that supercedes being from Roxie.

That would be like giving a hometown as "Hospital, New York, New York." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.220.228.28 (talk) 10:03, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

An Approach to Richard Wright’s Novels (2010)
I'm just leaving this as a note in case anybody has the same concern I did... I was Googling about for possible additional references, and I was alarmed to find a lot of the text from this article on Google Books, in what appeared to be an independently self-published book by "Raja Sharma" from 2010. That would have been a messy copyvio to clean up. However, on running a WikiBlame search of the revision history for the term "instant best-seller", I found that that particular text had in fact been composed organically -- there was no tell-tale revision in which the whole section was dumped in. Further, on comparing the date of that revision to the date of "Sharma's" book as listed on Lulu.com (can't link due to blacklisting), the book is dated 2010-12-28 while the revision is dated 2010-12-01.

Thus, it appears that large sections of the article were copied into that book in December 2010, rather than the other way around. -- Visviva (talk) 08:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

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Rayson reference
I was reviewing this reference (Rayson2) for Wright's early childhood: It was formerly a link to Univ. of Illinois--likely something a professor created, but might be student or grad. student. The old url points to a different site, so changed it to go directly to the site it was being directed to. It's unclear to me if this article exists in any form that can be verified, so I tagged the ref with. Any thoughts? --David Tornheim (talk) 22:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Rayson, Ann. "Richard Wright's Life." Modern American Poetry, Nelson, Cary and Brinkman, Bartholomew, eds. Department of English, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: 2001.