This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of African American author Richard Wright, whose famous novels Black Boy and Native Son redefined race relations in the 20th century. Appropriate to the occasion, the press released a new paperback edition of the authoritative biographical account of Wright’s tumultuous life and literary career, Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley. An illuminating article in the June 11 edition of the Times Literary Supplement references Rowley’s book as it delivers a short biography of Wright, describing his rise and fall as one of the “stars” in the early twentieth century’s “literary firmament,” his complicated relationship to the civil rights movement, and the “hazards of his expatriation to France in the late 1940’s.” You can read the full article by James Campbell at the TLS Online. And then navigate here to find out more about Rowley’s biography.