Tag Archives: Richard Wright

Thy Will Be Done on Earth

By Robin Bates | Published: May 28, 2022

Lucille Clifton’s final book of poems call out some of the blindnesses of Christian fundamentalists.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Black Boy, Book of Days, Christian nationalists, Fundamentalism, Lucille Clifton | Comments closed

Harris’s Literary Favs Reveal a Vibrant Soul

By Robin Bates | Published: November 16, 2020

Kamala Harris’s favorite lit reveals a woman engaging in foundational exploration, especially regarding race and gender.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Amy Tan, C. S. Lewis, immigrants, Joy Luck Club, Kamala Harris, Khaled Hosseini, Kite Runner, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Native Son, race relations, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison | Comments closed

How Literature Saved Richard Wright

By Robin Bates | Published: February 10, 2020

In his memoir, Richard Wright describes how literature gave him a framework and spurred him to action in the segregated south.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Black Boy, Jim Crow, racism, segregation | Comments closed

Black vs. White Responses to “Raisin”

By Robin Bates | Published: January 11, 2018

“Raisin in the Sun” was a hit with both white and black audiences when it appeared in 1959 but for very different reasons.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Amiri Baraka, Civil Rights Movement, discrimination, Dutchman, Lorraine Hansberry, Native Son, race relations, Raisin in the Sun, Toilet, W. E. B. Du Bois | Comments closed

Can Art Thwart Trump? A Debate

By Robin Bates | Published: December 28, 2016

In which I argue with a writer who claims that art and artists have an inflated sense of their power and that they are irrelevant in the battle against Donald Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Grapes of Wrath, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Invisible Man, John Steinbeck, propaganda, Ralph Ellison, social realism, socialist realism, Uncle Tom's Cabin, W. H. Auden | Comments closed

Invisible Man & Lolita Changed the ’50s

By Robin Bates | Published: December 13, 2016

Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and Nabokov’s “Lolita” both challenged basic 1950s assumptions. The former changed public perceptions on what it meant to be black while the latter violated a tacit agreement not to go digging under neatly manicured lawns bordered by white picket fences.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 1950s, aestheticism, formalism, Hans Robert Jauss, horizon of expectations, Invisible Man, Lolita, modernism, Ralph Ellison, reception theory, social protest novel, Vladimir Nabokov | Comments closed

Bigger Thomas, Clarence’s Shadow

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2015

“Native Son,” 75 years old, is Justice Clarence Thomas’ favorite novel. I theorize that Bigger Thomas is the justice’s destructive shadow.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged affirmative action, Clarence Thomas, Everybody's Protest Novel, James Baldwin, Native Son, Supreme Court, voting rights | Comments closed

Reading as a Subversive Act

By Robin Bates | Published: October 17, 2013

Richard Wright’s “Black Boy” testifies to the liberating power of literature.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged American South, Black Boy, Civil Rights, racism, reading | Comments closed

Reading to Feel Accepted in a Strange Land

By Robin Bates | Published: January 11, 2013

Last year, when the book discussion group that I moderate was participating in America’s Big Read program, I was referred to this essay written for the occasion by the Indian-American literary critic Parul Sehgal, an editor at The New York Times Book Review. I particularly like how she describes feeling accepted by books, even though she […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Black Boy, reading, W. E. B. Dubois | Comments closed