{"product_id":"black-boy-by-richard-wright-9780062964137","title":"Black Boy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Superb... A great American writer speaks with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the centre of our lives.\" — \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA striking new edition of Richard Wright's powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author's grandson.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, \u003cem\u003eBlack Boy\u003c\/em\u003e was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e wrote that \"if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy.\" Yet from 1975 to 1978, \u003cem\u003eBlack Boy\u003c\/em\u003e was banned in schools throughout the United States for \"obscenity\" and \"instigating hatred between the races.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWright's once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him — whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he made his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt the end of \u003cem\u003eBlack Boy\u003c\/em\u003e, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to \"hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo.\" More than seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate. \"To read \u003cem\u003eBlack Boy\u003c\/em\u003e is to stare into the heart of darkness,\" John Edgar Wideman writes in his foreword. \"Not the dark heart Conrad searched for in Congo jungles but the beating heart I bear.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the great American memoirs, Wright's account is a poignant record of struggle and endurance — a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Arotahi Agency","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47647898304748,"sku":"9780062964137","price":50.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780062964137-black-boy.jpg?v=1779243490","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/black-boy-by-richard-wright-9780062964137","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}