{"product_id":"black-boy-a-record-of-childhood-and-youth-isbn-9780060834005","title":"Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen \u003cem\u003eBlack Boy\u003c\/em\u003e exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, it caused a sensation. 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.\" Opposing forces felt compelled to comment: addressing Congress, Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi argued that the purpose of this book \"was to plant seeds of hate and devilment in the minds of every American.\" 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\u003eThis new edition of the once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as \"black boy.\" Richard Wright grew up in the woods of Mississippi, with poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those about him; at six he was \"a drunkard,\" hanging about taverns. Surly, brutal, cold, suspicious, and self-pitying, he was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common lot. 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.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWright's eloquent account is at once a profound indictment and an unashamed confession -- a poignant and disturbing record of social injustice and human suffering.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHarperCollins is proud to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the book's publication with this special hardcover edition, which utilizes the restored text established by The Library of America and features a new foreword by Edward P. Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel \u003cem\u003eThe Known World\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eWhen \u003cem\u003eBlack Boy\u003c\/em\u003e exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, it caused a sensation. 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.\" Opposing forces felt compelled to comment: addressing Congress, Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi argued that the purpose of this book \"was to plant seeds of hate and devilment in the minds of every American.\" 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\u003eThis new edition of the once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as \"black boy.\" Richard Wright grew up in the woods of Mississippi, with poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those about him; at six he was \"a drunkard,\" hanging about taverns. Surly, brutal, cold, suspicious, and self-pitying, he was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common lot. 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.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWright's eloquent account is at once a profound indictment and an unashamed confession -- a poignant and disturbing record of social injustice and human suffering.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHarperCollins is proud to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the book's publication with this special hardcover edition, which utilizes the restored text established by The Library of America and features a new foreword by Edward P. Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel \u003cem\u003eThe Known World\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“The publication of this new edition is not just an editorial innovation. It is a major event in American literary history.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAndrew Delbanco, New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A visceral and unforgettable account of a young black man’s coming of age in the American south in the bitter decades before the civil rights movement.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In this poignant and disturbing book one of the most gifted of America’s younger writers turns from fiction to tell the story of his own life during the nineteen years he lived in the South.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“One of the most important literary talents of contemporary America.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Superb. . . . A great American writer speaks with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889121128677,"sku":"NP9780060834005","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780060834005.jpg?v=1730230559","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/black-boy-a-record-of-childhood-and-youth-isbn-9780060834005","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}