Research Catalog

Title

Bigger : a literary life / Trudier Harris.

Author

Harris, Trudier

Publication

• New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2024]
• ©2024

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Yale University Press, publisher

Series Statement

Black lives

Uniform Title

Black lives (Yale University Press)

Subject

• Wright, Richard, 1908-1960. Native son
• Wright, Richard, 1908-1960 > Characters
• Thomas, Bigger (Fictitious character)
• American fiction > History and criticism
• African American men in literature
• Social realism in literature
• Black author

Genre/Form

• Literary criticism.
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Note

• "Published with assistance from Jonathan W. Leone, Yale '86, and from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund"--T.p. verso

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local note

• Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Contents

The birth of Bigger Thomas -- Of men and monsters -- Lightning in a bottle -- Bigger from the 1950s to the Black Arts Movement -- A controversial classic -- Bigger on Bigger -- The value of a literary life.

Call Number

Sc D 24-521

ISBN

• 9780300269321
• 0300269323

LCCN

2023949181

OCLC

1405842935

Author

Harris, Trudier, author.

Title

Bigger : a literary life / Trudier Harris.

Publisher

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2024]

Copyright Date

©2024

Description

xiii, 184 pages ; 22 cm.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Black lives

Black lives (Yale University Press)

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary

"Bigger Thomas, the central figure in Richard Wright's novel Native Son (1940), eludes easy categorization. A violent and troubled character who rejects the rules of society, Bigger is both victim and perpetrator, damaged by racism and segregation on the South Side of Chicago. He steals, rapes, and kills without regrets. His story has electrified readers for more than eight decades, and it continues to galvanize debates around representation, respectability, social justice, and racism in American life. In this book Trudier Harris, the distinguished scholar of English, examines the literary life of Bigger Thomas from his birth to the current day. Harris explores the debates between Black critics and Communist artists in the 1930s and 1940s over the "political novel," the censorship of Native Son by white publishers, and the work's initial reception--as well as interpretations from Black feminists and Black Power activists in the decades that followed, up to the novel's resonance with the Black Lives Matter movement today. Harris portrays Bigger as the knotted heart of American racism, damning and unsettling, and still very much with us"-- Provided by publisher

Local Note

Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Local Subject

Black author.

Added Author

Yale University Press, publisher.

Research Call Number

Sc D 24-521