The most valued pleasure of the people I knew was a car, the most cherished experience a bottle of whisky, the most sought-after prize somebody else’… - Richard Wright

In an era when fiction with political intent was widely condemned, Wright’s haunting novel, with its clear political message, made me unafraid to write a political novel. It also showed me that presenting horrifying actions can serve a powerful literary purpose, and that “shocking” can be high praise.

During the following days I learned through discreet questioning that I had seemed a fantastic element to the black Communists. I was shocked to hear that I, who had been only to grammar school, had been classified as an intellectual. What was an intellectual? I had never heard the word used in the sense in which it was applied to me.

And still when the delicate and unconscious machinery of race relations slips, there will be murder again. How can law contradict the lives of millions of people and hope to be administered successfully?