Native Son is a novel by Richard Wright that ranks among the classics of African American literature. The novel, Wright’s first, was published in 1940. It was the first work of African American prose fiction to become a national best seller in the United States.
The powerful, realistic novel tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a young man living in the Chicago ghetto. His prospects restricted by racism and poverty, Thomas accidentally kills a white woman. Afraid of betrayal, he rapes and murders his Black girlfriend. Thomas is captured and sentenced to death. Wright based the narrative partly on his own experience as an impoverished young man in Chicago and partly on a real-life murder case from 1938.
The novel traces Thomas’s quest to find meaning in his life in a hostile, racist world. Wright skillfully portrays Thomas’s fantasies and fears as he tries to escape his fate. By the end of the story, Thomas reaches an awareness of how his life has led to his execution. Wright and the American playwright Paul Green adapted Native Son into a play in 1941. In 1951, Wright starred as Bigger Thomas in a film version of the play. Wright co-wrote the screenplay. Motion picture versions of Wright’s story were also released in 1986 and 2019.
