Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • Magazines

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Classics and poetry
  3. Classics

Read and listen for free for 7 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
3.9(8)

Native Son

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels

“If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.

""The most powerful American novel to appear since The Grapes of Wrath."" —The New Yorker

When it was first published in 1940, Native Son established Richard Wright as a literary star. In the decades since, Wright's masterpiece—hailed by Newsweek as ""a novel of tremendous power and beauty""—has become a revered classic that remains as timely and relevant today as when it first appeared.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Native Son is the story of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man caught in a downward spiral after killing a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Written with the distinctive rhythm of a modern crime story, this formidable work is both a condemnation of social injustice and an unsparing portrait of the Black experience in America, revealing the tragic effect of poverty, racism, and hopelessness on the human spirit. ""I wrote Native Son to show what manner of men and women our 'society of the majority' breeds, and my aim was to depict a character in terms of the living tissue and texture of daily consciousness,"" Wright explained.


Author:

  • Richard Wright

Narrator:

  • Peter Francis James

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 17 h 58 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Classics and poetry
  • Classics

More by Richard Wright

Skip the list
  1. El dios que fracasó

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

    book
  2. Black Boy

    Richard Wright

    audiobookbook
  3. Native Son : Harlem Renaissance Novel

    Richard Wright

    book
  4. Fosterlandets son

    Richard Wright

    book
  5. The Man Who Lived Underground

    Richard Wright

    audiobook
  6. Uncle Tom's Children

    Richard Wright

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

    Richard Wright

    book

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

    Charles Dickens

    audiobookbook
  2. Little Dorrit

    Charles Dickens

    audiobookbook
  3. Frankenstein

    Mary Shelley

    audiobookbook
  4. The Little Match Girl - Story Time, Episode 71 (Unabridged)

    Hans Christian

    audiobook
  5. The Red Badge of Courage

    Stephen Crane

    audiobookbook
  6. John Thomas and Lady Jane : The Second 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'

    D H Lawrence

    audiobook
  7. Heart of Darkness : Audio Book Bestseller Classics Collection

    Joseph Conrad

    audiobook
  8. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

    Mark Twain

    audiobookbook
  9. My First Summer in the Sierra

    John Muir

    audiobook
  10. Sacred Time : A Novel

    Ursula Hegi

    audiobookbook
  11. The Little Match Girl

    Hans Christian Andersen

    audiobookbook
  12. Candide

    Voltaire Voltaire

    audiobookbook

  • 8 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

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5