"Writing," Richard Wright once said, "is my way of being a free man." In this engaging biography, Hazel Rowley chronicles Wright's extraordinary journey from a sharecropper's shack in Mississippi to international renown as a writer, fiercely independent thinker, and outspoken critic of racism.Skillfully interweaving quotations from Wright's writings, Rowley portrays a man who transcended the times in which he lived and sought to reconcile opposing cultures in his work. She draws on recently discovered material to shed new light on Wright's relationships with Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, and others, and on his self-imposed exile in France (widely blamed for his so-called decline as a writer). In this lively, finely crafted narrative, Wright -- passionate, complex, courageous, and flawed -- comes vibrantly to life.Hazel Rowley is the author of Christina Stead: A Biography, which was aNew York Times Notable Book. She has taught at Iowa University and Deakins University in Melbourne and is a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe College. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts."Writing," Richard Wright once said, "is my way of being a free man." In this biography, Hazel Rowley chronicles Wright's extraordinary journey from a sharecropper's shack in Mississippi to international renown as a writer, fiercely independent thinker, and outspoken critic of racism.The child of the fundamentalist South with an eighth grade education, a self-taught intellectual in the working-class Communist Party of the 1930s, a black man married to a white woman, and an expatriate in France after World War II, Wright was always an outsider. Interweaving quotations from Wright's writings, Rowley portrays a man who transcended the times in which he lived and sought to reconcile opposing cultures in his work. She draws on recently discovered material to shed new light on Wright's relationships with Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison and others and on his self-imposed exile in France (widely blamed for his so-called decline as a writer). In her lively, finely crafted narrative, Wright—passionate, complex, courageous, and flawed—comes vibrantly to life.“A welcome and illuminating work . . . [Rowley] does an outstanding job placing Wright within the social and political contexts of the many worlds through which he moved . . . Rich and revealing.”—Megan Harlan,San Francisco Chronicle“In her excellent, entirely readable Richard Wright: The Life and Times, Hazel Rowley accomplishes what [previous biographer Michel] Fabre would have liked to do with once-guarded letters, aging witnesses, previously unidentified girlfriends . . . Mostly, Rowley concentrates on telling Wright’s very powerful story."—Darryl Pinckney, New York Review of Books“Wright’s was an epic journey . . . Hazel Rowley describes it in gripping fashion in her new biography . . . Thoroughly engrossing from the first page to the last . . . Rowley's book is bursting with juicy anecdotes, yet the biographer manages always to be fair-minded and non-judgmental.”—Jake Lamar, The Washington Post Book Review“The strength of Richard Wright: The Life and Times is [Rowley’s] painstaking research . . . [She] has a daunting dedication to primary sources and her documentation is meticulous.”—Michael Anderson,New York Times Book Review (cover review) “Hazel Rowley does a splendid job . . . Richard Wright is well written, prodigiously researched and nicely paced, a compelling evocation of the man, his craft and the different worlds through which he moved . . . As pure biography it’s hard to fault Ms. Rowley’s book.”—Michael Ybarra, The Wall Street Journal"Everything a literary biography should be."—Michael Upchurch, The New York Times"Riveting . . . In Rowley's incisive and engrossing appreciation of a literary career spanning two continents, Richard Wright now has a biography that takes full measure of the significance of his celebrated, tortured, volcanic passage."—David Levering Lewis, author of W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919, and W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963"All that one can reasonably hope for in a biography, and yet so much more. Tirelessly, imaginatively researched and elegantly written, it examines the enigmatic native son with anfs20exacting but also finely sympathetic eye. The result is a portrait of uncommon penetration and skill—surely one of the finest literary biographies to appear in many a year."—Arnold Rampersad, professor Stanford University, and author of The Life of Langston Hughes"A more complex, detailed view of Wright than previously seen . . . superb book from start to finish."—Robert Fleming,BookPage"No one has ever done as comprehensive and compelling a treatment . . . [Her] book not only corrects past errors in other accounts of Richard Wight, it places his ideas, views and achievements in their proper perspective."—Ron Wynn,Essence“Rowley’s biography is wonderfully readable and fair to the subject . . . This is a first-rate biography worthy of its towering, larger-than-life subject.”—Gerald Early,Christian Science Monitor “A welcome and illuminating work . . . [Rowley] does an outstanding job placing Wright within the social and political contexts of the many worlds through which he moved . . . Rich and revealing.”—Megan Harlan,San Francisco Chronicle“A book worthy of its complex and enormously talented subject. Rowley . . . is not only a fine researcher but a splendid stylist. She captures the excitement and despair that was the life of one of America’s finest novelists.”—Roger Harris, Star-Ledger(Newark)"Given that Wright's life was so sweeping and so important, it would be easy to get lost in it. A couple of past bios (notably his once close friend Margaret Walker'sDaemonic Genius in 1988) seemed overwhelmed by Wright. Rowley's take, which is the fifth major biography of his life, seems to me the best balanced and most complete. It is a worthy companion to Wright's own Black Boy andAmerican Hunger, and absolutely the great way to get through the dog days of August.”—Nelson George“Moving . . . Rowley’s writing is clear, concise . . . [She] wisely lets Wright’s correspondence, and the recollections of his surviving friends, family members, and other living associates, paint a vivid picture of a man who was as complicated as he was talented.”—Amy Alexander, The Boston Globe“This is an impressive biography of a writer whose work exposed the evils of racism to generations of readers, black and white. It also may be the most realistic picture to date of a 20major American literary figure whose work is still widely read and discussed.”—Elizabeth Bennett, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“Hazel Rowley’s Richard Wright is nothing less than brilliant . . . if Black Boy and Native Son have mattered to you, this book is essential.”—Jeff Guinn,Ft. Worth Morning Star-Telegram"Absorbing."—The New Yorker"A worthy companion of Wright's own Black Boy and American Hunger, and abs Read Less