Richard Wright and the Season of Manifestoes

This chapter studies the significance of the timing of Richard Wright's “Blueprint for Writing” and its applications to his nonfiction work, specifically his early journalism and work as a journal editor. The chapter places Wright's piece among the earliest in an international flurry of black diaspora manifestoes articulating generational and language disruptions. This is especially the case for Haitian and other francophone writers whom Wright would join in Paris by 1947. In their attempt to resist American oppression and French colonialism, nearly all called upon a return to embrace folklore, traditional expressive culture, and the complexity of their own history. Wright internationalizes the Chicago impulses coursing through the literary thought of his generation throughout the African diaspora.