Description: In the last years of his life, Richard Wright, the fierce and original American novelist known for Native Son and Black Boy, wrote over four thousand haiku. In Richard Wright and Haiku, Yoshinobu Hakutani considers Wright the poet and his late devotion to the spare, unrhymed verse that dwells on human beings' relationship to the natural world rather than on their relationships with one another, a strong departure from the intense and often conflicted relationships that had dominated his fiction. Richard Wright and Haiku is a valuable addition to the critical discussion of the life and works of Richard Wright as well as a welcome contribution to scholarship on haiku in the West.
Review Quotes: "Insightful and informative, Richard Wright and Haiku is a seminal work of impeccable scholarship, highly recommended reading for admirers of Richard Wright's novels, as well as students of haiku poetry in general."--Jack Mason, The Midwest Book Review