When considering the critical reputation of Black Boy it is important to note that the novel was available only in a truncated version until 1977. In that year, the full text, American Hunger, was published. This work gives the reader a very different view of Richard because the hope granted by the escape to the North at the "end" of the first section is undercut by the broken American dream found in Chicago in the second part. However, Black Boy in its 1945 version was well received and remains a popular work to this day. Critically, the work has been viewed as Wright's masterpiece, a twentieth century version of the slave narrative, and a work of protest against racism, censorship, and intolerance. More recently, criticism has been focused on the restored novel (the version established by.....
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