The Outsider

Richard Wright

“The Outsider is a prophetic book . . . a book people should ponder.” — New York Times
“Wright created in this fast-paced, riveting narrative...one of the most complex characters in African-American fiction: a black intellectual, freed of his past, who plays out the Sartrean belief that ‘Existence precedes essence.’ ” — Chicago Tribune Books
“The novel, which builds steadily to a clamorous denunciation of the rival totalitarianisms of Communism and Fascism, also offers a dire and accurate prediction of a worldwide revival of religious fundamentalism in response to the spiritual gloom spawned by these monoliths.... The Library of America decided to publish the final typescript of the novel as submitted by Wright. It restored all the passages pulled by the copyeditor, as well as his or her other changes.” — Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review
“It is in the description of action. . . that Mr. Wright excels, not merely because he can make the reader see but because he compels him to participate. There is not a murder in the book that the reader, at the moment of reading about it, does not feel that he would have committed under the same circumstances. . . . [The Outsider] challenges the modern mind as it has rarely been challenged in fiction. ” — Granville Hicks, New York Times