The Man Who Was Almost a Man (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Wright was born on September 4, 1908, near Natchez, Mississippi. His father, an illiterate farm laborer, left the family when Wright was six. He was raised by his mother, a well-educated schoolteacher. Wright had a difficult childhood, as his mother was seriously ill; Wright and his younger brother went to live with her parents in Jackson, Mississippi, where he came under the strong influence of his grandmother’s strict Seventh Day Adventism.

At the age of nineteen, Wright moved to Chicago. He became involved with a leftist literary group known as the John Reed Club and joined the Communist Party. He worked as a journalist for several leftist newspapers and published essays on Marxism and Black Nationalism as well as short stories and poetry. During this period he wrote an early version of “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” as part of an unfinished novel.

In 1938, after moving to New York, he published his first collection of short stories entitled Uncle Tom’s Children. The following year he was awarded a Guggenheim grant to finish his first novel, Native Son, which became the first bestseller written by an African American. His autobiography, Black Boy, appeared in 1945 and solidified his reputation as a courageous African-American voice.

He broke with the Communist Party in 1944 and moved to France, where he lived in voluntary exile for the rest of his life. He associated with many prominent writers and intellectuals and became an outspoken critic of colonialism. He continued to publish both fiction and nonfiction books, but none had the success of his major early works. Toward the end of his life, Wright was plagued by financial and health problems. He died in Paris at age 52.