Richard Wright’s life has long been a source of questions. The most frequently asked is how this man born in Jackson, Mississippi, to sharecroppers could grow up in the Jim Crow south and turn into a great American author with international fame. Self-educated, Richard Wright - referred to as Dick throughout most of the biography - developed himself into an intellectual and author who wrote with insight into the social as well as racial composition of his race.
Having some knowledge of Richard Wright before reading, "Richard Wright: The Life and Times" was a blessing in disguise. The biography clarified some aspects of Wright's life that I thought I knew. Richard Wright’s communist involvement, for example, was apparently started as an opportunity to advance in his writing through the John Reed club associations. Over the years that followed his communist affiliation was sporadic at best. Despite this, Wright spent a good deal of his adult life under the surveillance of agencies of the U.S. government.
The biography brings out an aspect of Richard Wright's life that may not be widely known - his womanizing. Wright throughout the biography is described as attracted to woman and the attraction was definitely mutual. Before and after Wright was married to his second and last wife, Ellen, he was frequently involved in affairs. I was struck by Wright's view of "the race problem in America." At one point he is described as being obsessed about race. Even with this view of race, Richard Wright did not have a problem with the race of his women. With the exception of one woman he met in Argentina and had an affair with over a period of several months, all the women Wright was involved with were white, including his two wives.
A well-known "expatriate," Wright was a restless individual who developed a desire to travel aboard early in his life. Following his successful publication of "Uncle Tom's Children" and "Native Son," Wright had the opportunity to travel to France. Wright found in France that he ws treated as a man and not a black man only. With the seed sown, Wright would not be the same after this experience abroad.
Richard Wright was subject to criticism later in his life. His work his believed to have suffered as he grew older and it was thought by his acquaintances that during his voluntary exile from the United States he "lost something as a writer."
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