Native Son

Now an HBO Film!

“If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. This classic American novel, Native Son, tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing work of social commentary and a reflection on the poverty, racial injustice, and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

This abridged edition of Native Son reprints the original edition from 1940. It also includes an essay by Wright, How "Bigger" was Born, as well as an afterword by John Reilly.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what it means to be black in America.

This abridged edition includes an introduction, "How Bigger Was Born," by the author, as well as an afterword by John Reilly.

“A deep experience.” - The New Yorker

“Richard Wright’s masterpiece . . . taught me that it’s all right to have passion within your work, that you don’t need to shy away from politics in order to write fiction.” - Gloria Naylor

“There have only been two books in my life that have made me cry: the first 50 pages of Jane Eyre and the last 50 of Native Son. . . . Richard Wright’s masterpiece is in the school of protest novel. . . Native Son taught me that it’s all right to have passion within your work, that you don’t need to shy away from politics in order to write fiction.” - Gloria Naylor

“The Library of America has ensured that most of Wright’s major texts are now available as he wanted them to be read.” - Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review

“It’s difficult to write temperately of a book which abounds in such excitement, in so profound an understanding of human frailty.” - New York Herald Tribune

“An enormously stirring novel. . . a story to trouble midnight and the noon’s repose and to haunt the imagination.” - New York Times

“For terror in narrative, utter and compelling, there are few pages in modern American literature that will compare with this story.” - Saturday Review

“A powerfully blunt novel.” - Washington Post

“This new edition gives us a Native Son in which the key line in the key scene is restored to the great good fortune of American letters. The scene as we now have it is central both to an ongoing conversation among African-American writers and critics and to the consciousness among all American readers of what means to live in a multiracial society on which power splits among racial lines.” - Jack Miles, Los Angeles Times

“A novel of tremendous power and beauty.” - Newsweek

“The most powerful American novel to appear since The Grapes of Wrath. . . so overwhelming is its central drive, so gripping its mounting intensity.” - The New Yorker