Product Description
The Man Who Lived Underground
Author: Richard Wright
Format: Paperback
AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4's OPEN BOOK***
The 'propulsive, haunting' and 'gripping' (Oprah) rediscovered classic that exposes the dark heart of America for an inncocent Black man on the run from the police
Fred Daniels, a black man, is randomly picked up by the police after a brutal murder in a Chicago suburb. Taken to the local precinct, he is tortured -- until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit.
But when he sees his chance, Fred Daniels, makes a run for it. With the world now against him, there is only one place left to hide: Underground. Taking residence in the sewers below the streets of Chicago, Fred's new vantage point takes him on a journey through America's unjust, and inhumane underbelly.
Praise for the Man Who Lived Underground
'Propulsive, haunting...gripping' — Oprah Daily
'A tale for today' — New York Times
'Absolutely not to be missed' — BookRiot
'A masterpiece' — Time
'Wright's most brilliantly crafted, and ominously foretelling, book.' — Kiese Laymon
The Man Who Lived Underground was a New York Times Bestseller on 24/04/2022
About the Author
Richard Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1908, to a sharecropping family of ex-slaves. His mother was a schoolteacher but, abandoned by her husband, she had to resort to menial jobs to feed her two sons before suffering a series of strokes. During a childhood scarred by hunger, Wright lived in Memphis, Tennessee, then in an orphanage, and with various relatives. He left home at fifteen, returned to Memphis for two years to work, and in 1934 went to Chicago where he was employed at the Post Office before beginning work at the Federal Writers' Project in 1935. He published Uncle Tom's Children in 1938 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship the following year. His other books include Native Son (1940), his autobiography, Black Boy (1945), and The Outsider (1953). After the war, Richard Wright chose expatriation and went to live in Paris with his family, remaining there until his death in 1960.
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