Native son
(Book)

Originally published in 1940, with the text restored by The Library of America in 1991 in a volume titled: Richard Wright: Early Works, that also included Lawd Today! and Uncle Tom's Children. This is the last version of the text that Wright prepared without external intervention.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written--in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what it means to be black in America.