Richard Wright was a preeminent African-American writer whose influence on the course of American literature has been widely recognized. As Irving Howe has said, "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever." The importance of Wright's works, beginning with Uncle Tom's Children (1938; enlarged, 1940), comes not so much from his technique and style but from the particular impact his ideas and attitudes have made on American life. His early critics' consideration was that of race. They were unanimous in the view that if Wright had not been black his work would not have been so significant. As his vision of the world extended beyond the United States, his quest for solutions expanded from problems of race to those of politics and economics in the emerging Third World. Finally, his long exile in France gave his national and international concerns a universal dimension. Wright's development was marked by...