{"product_id":"black-boy-seventy-fifth-anniversary-edition-9780062964137","title":"Black Boy [seventy-Fifth Anniversary Edition]","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA special 75th anniversary edition of Richard Wright's powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a new foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author's grandson.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\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\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 may his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At 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.\" Seventy-five year 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 \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--\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Wright, Richard\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/18\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Harper Perennial\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780062964137\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 464\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.76lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.00h x 5.30w x 1.10d","brand":"Richard Wright","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":32745566666827,"sku":"9780062964137","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0021\/1697\/6715\/products\/img_1cc36c9d-9ea0-4d23-b3df-5da88abcf668.jpg?v=1597703853","url":"https:\/\/blackbookstore.com\/products\/black-boy-seventy-fifth-anniversary-edition-9780062964137","provider":"Black Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}