Richard Wright’s Might-Have-Been Travel to the USSR

Abstract

In 1938–1941 Richard Wright kept nourishing the idea to visit the Soviet Union,In 1938–1941 Richard Wright kept nourishing the idea to visit the Soviet Union,live and work there for some time; however, these plans never became real. The articleand the materials from the Russian State Archive of Art and Literature (RichardWright’s and Walt Carmon’s correspondence with the editors of “International Literature”,Foreign Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers, and the State PublishingHouse “Goslitizdat”) help to reconstruct Wright’s contacts with the Soviet institutionsand some aspects of his relations with the Communist Party of the USA, to specifyand provide some additional information that could complement to the recent studiesof Wright’s life and work.

Keywords

• richard wright
• ussr
• soviet-american literary contacts
• correspondence
• “international literature”
• foreign commission of the union of soviet writers
• t. rokotov
• m. apletin
• walt carmon