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Down by the Riverside
Series: Brief Encounters
Brief Description
Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Richard Wright, trailblazing voice of African American literature, in this devastating story of survival, love and betrayal during a Southern flood. A flood brings not only rising waters but the full force of a brutal, racist world. With the Mississippi flooding,...
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Down by the Riverside
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Description
Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Richard Wright, trailblazing voice of African American literature, in this devastating story of survival, love and betrayal during a Southern flood.
A flood brings not only rising waters but the full force of a brutal, racist world.
With the Mississippi flooding, a Black farmer struggles to get his pregnant wife to safety. In the chaos, a single desperate decision sets off a chain of events that cannot be undone. Down by the Riverside is Richard Wright's unflinching novella of race, power and consequence. Starkly told and painfully resonant, it captures how quickly the world can turn - and who is forced to pay the price.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.
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Down by the Riverside
Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Richard Wright, trailblazing voice of African American literature, in this devastating story of survival, love and betrayal during a Southern flood. A flood brings not only rising waters but the full force of a brutal, racist world. With the Mississippi flooding, a Black farmer struggles to get his pregnant wife to safety. In the chaos,...Paperback$2400Unit price /UnavailableOut 20 Oct 2026Pre-order
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781529986020
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 02 July 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Vintage Classics
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 10.0mm
Width: 130.0mm
Height: 197.0mm
Weight: 88g
Pages: 96
About the Author
Richard Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1908, to a sharecropping family of ex--slaves. His mother was a schoolteacher but, abandoned by her husband, she had to resort to menial jobs to feed her two sons before suffering a series of strokes. During a childhood scarred by hunger, Wright lived in Memphis, Tennessee, then in an orphanage, and with various relatives. He left home at fifteen, returned to Memphis for two years to work, and in 1934 went to Chicago where he was employed at the Post Office before beginning work at the Federal Writers' Project in 1935. He published Uncle Tom's Children in 1938 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship the following year. His other books include Native Son (1940), his autobiography, Black Boy (1945), and The Outsider (1953). After the war, Richard Wright chose expatriation and went to live in Paris with his family, remaining there until his death in 1960.
Also by Richard Wright
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Native Son
Discover Richard Wright's brutal and gripping masterpiece. Bigger Thomas has grown up in Chicago's slums, reckless, angry and adrift. A respectable job with the affluent Dalton family provides hope but sets him on course for a catastrophic collision between his world and theirs. Hunted by citizen and police alike, and baited by prejudiced officials, Bigger finds himself the cause célèbre...Paperback$2999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Black Boy
"Superb... A great American writer speaks with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the centre of our lives." β New York Times Book Review A 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. When it exploded onto the literary...Paperback$5100Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
Black Boy
βSuperb. . . . A great American writer speaks with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the centre of our lives.ββNew York Times Book Review Celebrating its eightieth anniversary, Richard Wright's eloquent autobiography about growing up in the Jim Crow South gives a unique voice to being Southern, black, and male in early 20th-century Americaβnow available as...Paperback$4000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks
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