Before he was 40, Wright dominated literary America, publishing four books in seven years, each a triumph in its genre. His first novel, <i>Native Son</i> (1940), sold at the rate of 2,000 copies a day, making Wright the first best-selling black writer in the country's history. <i>Black Boy</i> (1945), his memoir of his Southern childhood, was a bigger success, selling more than a half-million copies. * New York Times *<br />Richard Wright's <i>Native Son</i> is, in addition to being a masterpiece, a Great American Novel * Guardian *<br />Unsettling urban violence from the man who was Mosley's inspiration * The Times *<br /><i>Native Son</i> is the story of a young black man who kills two white women; and it was the first book - published in 1940 - to suggest that black Americans could actually get angry. When it came out, it beat <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i> in the best-seller lists * Independent *