3 Review(s)

This is Richard Wright's stark and vehement novel about a young black man who is hardened by life in the slums and whose every effort to free himself proves hopeless. Unwittingly involved in a wealthy woman's death, he is hunted relentlessly, baited by prejudiced officials, charged with murder and driven to acknowledge a strange pride in his crime. He realises his full individuality only through the confrontation of death. NATIVE SON is among the first American works of fiction to portray an existential hero in the process of self-transcendence, and is one of the last novels of the politically conscious, post-depression years.