Richard Wright New Readings in the 21st Century

This wide-ranging collection of essays contains unexplored themes and theoretical orientations centering on racism and spatial dimensions; the transnational and political Wright; Wright and masculinity, Wright and the American 1950s and 1960s; and some of the first analyses of Wright's recently published A Father ' s Law (2008).

Introduction; A.Mikal Craven & W.E.Dow PART I: '(RE)PLACING RICHARD WRIGHT' From New Chicago Renaissance from Wright to Fair Modern and Post-Modern Eden: Richard Wright; R.Baxter Miller Wright Among the 'G-Men': How the FBI Framed Paris Noir; W.J.Maxwell A Father's Law, 1950s Masculinity, and Richard Wright's Agony Over Integration; L.Cassuto Seeking Salvation in a Naturalistic Universe: Richard Wright's Use of His Southern Religious Background in Black Boy (American Hunger); R.J.Butler PART II: 'TAKING SIDES: RACISM AND SPATIAL DIMENSIONS' 'White People to Either Side': Native Son and the Poetics of Space; I.Soto Becoming Richard Wright: Space and the WPA; T.M.Davis PART III: 'WRIGHT: PULP AND MEDIA, REALITY AND FICTION' Savage Holiday: Documentary Noir and True Crime in 12 Million Black Voices; P.Rabinowitz A Father's Law and Black Metropolis: Intellectual Growth and Literary Vision; J.A.Joyce A Queer Finale: Sympathy and Privacy in Wright's A Father's Law; J.C.Charles PART IV: 'WRIGHT: NEW COMPARATIVE FRAMEWORKS' Changing Texts: Censorship, 'Reality' and Fiction in Native Son; C.Raynaud 'The Astonishing Humanity': Domestic Discourses in the Friendship and Fiction of Richard Wright and Carson McCullers; J.Ulin When Wright Bid McKay Break Bread: Tracing Black Transnational Geneaology; G.Holcomb The Political Art of Wright's 'Fire and Cloud'; R.Shulman Richard Wright and the CircumCaribbean; J.Lowe

ALICE MIKAL CRAVEN is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the American University of Paris, France.

WILLIAM E. DOW is Professor of American Literature at Université Paris-Est, France.