Byline, Richard Wright

Articles from the DAILY WORKER and NEW MASSES

Earle V. Bryant

304 pages

Published: July 2016

ISBN: 9780826220929

Formats:

Price: $39.95

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About This Book: A writer perhaps best known for the revolutionary works Black Boy and Native Son, Richard Wright also worked as a journalist during one of the most explosive periods of the 20th century. From 1937 to 1938, Wright turned out more than two hundred articles for the Daily Worker, the newspaper that served as the voice of the American Communist Party. Byline, Richard Wright assembles more than one hundred of those articles plus two of Wright’s essays from New Masses, revealing to readers the early work of an American icon.
As both reporter and Harlem bureau chief, Wright covered most of the major and minor events, personalities, and issues percolating through the local, national, and global scenes in the late 1930s. Because the Daily Worker wasn’t a mainstream paper, editors gave Wright free rein to cover the stories he wanted, and he tackled issues that no one else covered. Although his peers criticized his journalistic writing, these articles offer revealing portraits of Depression-era America rendered in solid, vivid prose.
Featuring Earle V. Bryant’s informative, detailed introduction and commentary contextualizing the compiled articles, Byline, Richard Wright provides insight into the man before he achieved fame as a novelist, short story writer, and internationally recognized voice of social protest. This collection opens new territory in Wright studies, and fans of Wright’s novels will delight in discovering the lost material of this literary great.
Authors and Editors: Earle V. Bryant is Professor of English at the University of New Orleans where he teaches American and African American literature. He has written extensively on Richard Wright, Charles Chesnutt, and Bernard Malamud and is at work on a book on Dorothy West. A native of Philadelphia, Bryant now lives in New Orleans.
Praise For This Book: “Times were hard in the Harlem of the late 1930s, very hard. But Byline, Richard Wright reveals that thousands of class-conscious antiracists, both Party members and rank-and-file activists, threw themselves into organizing efforts guided by the vision of a better world. The young journalist who recorded this activity put his considerable talents into the service of this movement. This is a history—both political and literary—that we should honor and share.”—American Literary History

“Belongs in introductory and advanced reporting classes and seminars studying great books of journalism. With this compilation, Bryant has restored Wright’s position in American media history.”—American Journalism

“By reading Wright’s journalism through the lens of narratology, Bryant is able to foreground insightful analyses of political implications and aesthetic qualities and to tell us many things about the strengths and weaknesses of Wright’s accomplishments. Byline is Bryant’s effort ‘to bring Wright’s early newspaper work out obscurity and into the light where it can be read and appreciated.’” ―Resources for American Literary Study