Two Bronzeville Autobiographies

This chapter turns to the rise and fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks through the genre of autobiography. Wright's Black Boy (American Hunger) and Gwendolyn Brooks' Report From Part One indicate these authors' awareness of spatial realities and how they transformed the city of fact into the city of feeling, into their writing. The chapter details the dialogue between Wright's and Brooks' fiction and their urban surroundings as residents and then as prize-winning authors. Through various literary and sociological projects, Wright and Brooks initiated an investigation of place, coherency, and consciousness in Chicago's flats, alleyways, blocks, and one-room kitchenette apartments.