Richard Wright wrote novels to protest racism, inequality and injustice. He grew up in the South and, with no father and a mother who was very sick, Wright had a difficult childhood. Wright loved reading and used books as a way to escape from his past. As an African American boy, he couldn't take out library books so he borrowed a library card from a white coworker and forged notes to the librarian so he could read. Eventually, Wright's patience with the racist South grew thin, and he moved to New York City in 1937.

The pain that Wright suffered as a kid shows through in his writing. He wrote passionately about misery and anger, two emotions that appear in his most famous work, Native Son. This 1940 novel shocked many readers because the main character, Bigger, is a very violent black man who blames his actions on a racist white community. Native Son was an immediate success with both white and black readers, partly for the controversy surrounding it and partly for its fine writing.