[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]
Crafting a biography of
Richard Wright places special demands on a biographer. Wright was a genius, a man who embodied profound intelligence and creative vision, but Mississippi in the early twentieth century wasn’t the place for nurturing his kind of genius.
Gertrude Stein seems to have appreciated the irony that blooms when a native daughter and a native son share the status of exile. There was something surpassing mere hyperbole when, after reading
Black Boy, Stein wrote to Wright: “Dear Richard, It is obvious that you and I are the only two geniuses of this era.” Stein’s words constitute a sophisticated joke because genius manifests itself in many forms that cannot be reduced to comedy (Stein’s maximum playfulness) or tragedy (Wright’s maximum seriousness).
Margaret Walker, the native daughter who did not choose exile, anatomized the facets of genius in how she wrote about the dreams she and Wright dared to come true.
