W. Lawrence Hogue is professor emeritus of English at the University of Houston and author of multiple books, including Postmodernism, Traditional Cultural Forms, and African American Narratives.

“This fascinating biography of Charles Wright covers Morocco, Mexico, Europe, and points in the United States where he encounters sections of society rarely attended to. Hogue does an excellent job of making us understand Wright’s importance, his failures, his struggles, and the major contribution of his work to American and African American literary culture.”—Mary Helen Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s“Though Charles Wright left little in the way of papers behind, Hogue’s dogged pursuit of leads has given us the most complete documentary record of this important Black writer—someone whose queer, surreal, and satirical fiction no doubt anticipates the main currents of Black studies in the second decade of the twenty-first century.”—Kinohi Nishikawa, author of Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground

• PrefaceChapter One: The Missouri YearsChapter Two: Arriving in New York CityChapter Three: The MessengerChapter Four: The Years in TangierChapter Five: The Return to New York and the publication of The WigChapter Six: The Seventies and the Village VoiceChapter Seven: After Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About and the HodenfieldsChapter Eight: The EightiesChapter Nine: The NinetiesChapter Ten: The Two ThousandsWorks CitedNotes

W. Lawrence Hogue is professor emeritus of English at the University of Houston and author of multiple books, including Postmodernism, Traditional Cultural Forms, and African American Narratives.

“This fascinating biography of Charles Wright covers Morocco, Mexico, Europe, and points in the United States where he encounters sections of society rarely attended to. Hogue does an excellent job of making us understand Wright’s importance, his failures, his struggles, and the major contribution of his work to American and African American literary culture.”—Mary Helen Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s“Though Charles Wright left little in the way of papers behind, Hogue’s dogged pursuit of leads has given us the most complete documentary record of this important Black writer—someone whose queer, surreal, and satirical fiction no doubt anticipates the main currents of Black studies in the second decade of the twenty-first century.”—Kinohi Nishikawa, author of Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground

• PrefaceChapter One: The Missouri YearsChapter Two: Arriving in New York CityChapter Three: The MessengerChapter Four: The Years in TangierChapter Five: The Return to New York and the publication of The WigChapter Six: The Seventies and the Village VoiceChapter Seven: After Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About and the HodenfieldsChapter Eight: The EightiesChapter Nine: The NinetiesChapter Ten: The Two ThousandsWorks CitedNotes

W. Lawrence Hogue is professor emeritus of English at the University of Houston and author of multiple books, including Postmodernism, Traditional Cultural Forms, and African American Narratives.

“This fascinating biography of Charles Wright covers Morocco, Mexico, Europe, and points in the United States where he encounters sections of society rarely attended to. Hogue does an excellent job of making us understand Wright’s importance, his failures, his struggles, and the major contribution of his work to American and African American literary culture.”—Mary Helen Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s“Though Charles Wright left little in the way of papers behind, Hogue’s dogged pursuit of leads has given us the most complete documentary record of this important Black writer—someone whose queer, surreal, and satirical fiction no doubt anticipates the main currents of Black studies in the second decade of the twenty-first century.”—Kinohi Nishikawa, author of Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground

• PrefaceChapter One: The Missouri YearsChapter Two: Arriving in New York CityChapter Three: The MessengerChapter Four: The Years in TangierChapter Five: The Return to New York and the publication of The WigChapter Six: The Seventies and the Village VoiceChapter Seven: After Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About and the HodenfieldsChapter Eight: The EightiesChapter Nine: The NinetiesChapter Ten: The Two ThousandsWorks CitedNotes