VIRTUAL: Richard Wright's Grandson Talks About Wright's Lost Book: "The Man Who Lived Underground"

Join your neighbors for Malcolm Wright in conversation with leading scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin: A discussion of Wright's powerful novel about police brutality that is as relevant today as when it was originally written.

About Richard Wright & The Man Who Lived Underground
Richard Wright (1908-1960) is one of the most influential American writers of the last century. His major works include the novel Native Son and his memoir Black Boy.

The Man Who Lived Underground is Richard Wright's previously unpublished novel about race and police violence. A masterpiece that Wright was unable to publish in his lifetime. Written between his landmark books Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), at the height of his creative powers, it would eventually see publication only in drastically condensed and truncated form in the posthumous collection Eight Men (1961).
 
Now, for the first time, published by Library of America and by special arrangement with the author’s estate, the full text of this incendiary novel about race and violence in America, the work that meant more to Wright than any other (“I have never written anything in my life that stemmed more from sheer inspiration”), is published in the form that he intended. 

About Malcolm Wright
Malcolm Wright is a filmmaker, writer, and conservationist and provides the afterword for The Man Who Lived Underground. He is Richard Wright's grandson.

About Farah Jasmine Griffin
Farah Jasmine Griffin was the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University, where she is also William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is the author of numerous books and the recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her most recent book is Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature.

More about the program
This program is facilitated by Evanston Public Library, and co-sponsored by Evanston's Bookends & Beginnings Bookstore and Flossmoor Public Library, Highland Park Public Library, Oak Park Public Library, and Peoria Public Library.

Register now on the Evanston Public Library website »