Native Son
by Richard Wright, Richard Wright - undifferentiated · first published 1940
33% recommend67% neutral
Native Son (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.
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I'd love to hear what books influenced you when you were younger and how. I am trying to stock up on books that would benefit my son to read (and me as we read them together). Native Son by Richard Wright really hit me hard in high school. I'd love to hear what had a big impact on you.
on “Ask HN: What books influenced your moral compass?” ↗…Catch 22 stood out fo rme. - Atlas Shrugged and all of her books I liked (but not for the weird cult thing. - Classic Tom Clancy - Upton Sinclair The Jungle - Seismic impact on my view of the world. - Native Son in high school is something I think about to this day and bothers me. - From The Holy Mountain - Huge influence on me in my early 20s and where I ended up.
on “Ask HN: What book had a big impact on you as a child or teenager?” ↗…want - the graduation test is basic essay writing. Anyway, American English teachers are extremely fond, for whatever reason, of "themed" curricula. For example, in my 9th grade English class, we read "Native Son" by Richard Wright (black American), "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe (black Nigerian), "Cry, the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton (black South African), "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad (the only…
on “The Pixar Theory” ↗I was fortunate enough to read Native Son in my high school sophomore English class. While I appreciated it then, a few years ago I revisited it and read Baldwin’s response essay “Everyone’s Protest Novel” and other meta-literature around those…
on “The Bleak Resonance of ‘Native Son’” ↗