In the following essay, Mechling presents Richard Wright's autobiographical Black Boy in terms both of the folk traditions that inform the narrative, and of the ways that those traditions ultimately fail the narrator in cross-cultural situations.

In the following essay, Andrews identifies Richard Wright's Black Boy (American Hunger) as a defining work in the tradition of African American autobiography.

In the following essay, Thaddeus chronicles the publishing history of Black Boy and traces the book's metamorphosis from an open autobiography to a closed one.

In the following essay, Porter suggests that Black Boy and American Hunger should be read in order, viewing the two autobiographies as a portrait of the artist.

In the following essay, Bruchac discusses similarities between Black Boy by Richard Wright and The Dark Child by Camara Laye and places these works in the tradition of black autobiography that begins with The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789).

In this poignant and disturbing book ["Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth"] one of the most gifted of America's younger writers turns from fiction to tell the story of his own life during the nineteen years he lived in the South. The book is poignant because Richard Wright as a child and adolescent was a highly sensitive individual subjected to a series of cruel and almost unbearable shocks. It is disturbing because one wonders how many similarly sensitive individuals have been ...

["Black Boy"] has tremendous power. Its intensity of feeling, sustained drama, and sheer eloquence make reading it an unforgettable experience. This is because it is the product of a remarkable combination: an author of superb talent, a life story of pathos and tragedy, and a human theme of monumental significance. The story of Wright's own life in the South during his childhood and youth is a true document of race relations in America, for, although as autobiography it is highly person...

["Black Boy"] tells a harsh and forbidding story and makes one wonder just exactly what its relation to truth is. The [subtitle], "A Record of Childhood and Youth," makes one at first think that the story is autobiographical. It probably is, at least in part. But mainly it is probably intended to be fiction or fictionalized biography. At any rate the reader must regard it as creative writing rather than simply a record of life…. Not only is there [a] misjudgment of black f...