Co-sponsored by Evanston's Bookends & Beginnings Bookstore and multiple Illinois libraries.*
Join us for this virtual event about Richard Wright's previously unpublished novel The Man Who Lived Underground. Malcolm Wright discusses his grandfather's book with Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature.
Richard Wright (1908-1960) is one of the most influential American writers of the last century. His major works include the novel Native Son and his memoir Black Boy.
The Man Who Lived Underground is Richard Wright's previously unpublished novel about race and police violence. A masterpiece that Wright was unable to publish in his lifetime. Written between his landmark books Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), at the height of his creative powers, it would eventually see publication only in drastically condensed and truncated form in the posthumous collection Eight Men (1961). Now, for the first time, published by Library of America and by special arrangement with the author’s estate, the full text of this incendiary novel about race and violence in America is published in the form that he intended.
Malcolm Wright is a filmmaker, writer and conservationist and provides the afterword for The Man Who Lived Underground. He is Richard Wright's grandson.
Farah Jasmine Griffin was the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University, where she is also William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is the author of numerous books and the recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her most recent book is Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature.
*Downers Grove Public Library, Effingham Public Library, Evanston Public Library, Flossmoor Public Library, Highland Park Public Library, Oak Park Public Library, and Peoria Public Library.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Virtual | Authors & Book Discussions | Arts & Culture |
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