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5.0(1)

The Man Who Lived Underground

New York Times Bestseller • One of the Best Books of the Year by Time magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, and Esquire, and one of Oprah’s 15 Favorite Books of the Year

Read by actor Ethan Herisse

From the legendary author of Native Son and Black Boy, the novel he was unable to publish during his lifetime—an explosive story of racism, injustice, brutality, and survival. ""Not just Wright's masterwork, but also a milestone in African American literature . . . One of those indispensable works that reminds all its readers that, whether we are in the flow of life or somehow separated from it, above- or belowground, we are all human."" (Gene Seymour, CNN.com)

“The Man Who Lived Underground reminds us that any ‘greatest writers of the 20th century’ list that doesn’t start and end with Richard Wright is laughable. It might very well be Wright’s most brilliantly crafted, and ominously foretelling, book.”—Kiese Laymon

Fred Daniels, a Black man, is picked up by the police after a brutal double murder and tortured until he confesses to a crime he did not commit. After signing a confession, he escapes from custody and flees into the city’s sewer system.

This is the devastating premise of Richard Wright's scorching novel, The Man Who Lived Underground, written between his landmark books Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), at the height of his creative powers. Now, for the first time, by special arrangement between the Library of America and the author’s estate, the full text of the work that meant more to Wright than any other (“I have never written anything in my life that stemmed more from sheer inspiration”) is published in the form that he intended, complete with his companion essay, “Memories of My Grandmother.” Malcolm Wright, the author’s grandson, contributes an afterword.


Author:

  • Richard Wright

Narrator:

  • Ethan Herisse

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 6 h 45 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Fiction
  • Short stories

More by Richard Wright

Skip the list
  1. Black Boy

    Richard Wright

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  2. El dios que fracasó

    Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Richard Wright, André Gide, Louis Fischer, Stephen Spender

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  3. Native Son : Harlem Renaissance Novel

    Richard Wright

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  4. Uncle Tom's Children

    Richard Wright

    audiobook
  5. The Power of Purpose: How to obliterate obstacles and triumph over impossible adversity

    Richard Wright

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  6. Native Son

    Richard Wright

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  • 7 books

    Richard Wright

    Richard Wright won international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the black experience. He stands today alongside such African-American luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, and two of his books, Native Son and Black Boy, are required reading in high schools and colleges across the nation. He died in 1960.

    Read more

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