by Richard Wright (1940)

This gripping, angry novel presents the case of Bigger Thomas, a young Chicago black man whose discomfort with whites drives him deeper and deeper into trouble for reasons he cannot seem to explain. When he takes a live-in job with a wealthy white family, his life is overtaken by a series of circumstances that ends with him condemned to death for two murders.

Note: Native Son—Wright’s first novel—was based on the real-life case of Robert Nixon, who was executed for murder in 1938.