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Chapter 4 - Paris and Ailly

from Part I - Life and Career, Times and Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2021

Michael Nowlin
Affiliation:
University of Victoria, British Columbia
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Summary

Paris provided Wright with inspiration that could come only from his exiled status there as well as a diversity of contacts, encounters, cultural opportunities and political involvements that could be found nowhere else in the world. From his contacts with Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, André Gide, and Frantz Fanon to his encounters with Chester Himes, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King, Wright thrived on a dynamic assortment of collaborations. For Wright, his time in Paris (1947 until his death in 1960) and Ailly, a small farming town in East Normandy where Wright had a summer home (1955-1959) were for him instrumental in dealing with the racial terror he experienced in the United States. Paris and Ailly were places that aided his quest for self-discovery and deepened his relations with the global black diaspora. These locations allowed him to further engage with existentialism, Pan-Africanism, and Marxism while he experimented with such narrative modes as travel writing, literary journalism, and haiku. Perhaps most importantly, though, Paris was where Wright’s lifelong racial consciousness and globalist perspective were developed and confirmed.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Paris and Ailly
  • Edited by Michael Nowlin, University of Victoria, British Columbia
  • Book: Richard Wright in Context
  • Online publication: 08 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773522.006
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  • Paris and Ailly
  • Edited by Michael Nowlin, University of Victoria, British Columbia
  • Book: Richard Wright in Context
  • Online publication: 08 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773522.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Paris and Ailly
  • Edited by Michael Nowlin, University of Victoria, British Columbia
  • Book: Richard Wright in Context
  • Online publication: 08 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773522.006
Available formats
×