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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will commemorate the life and work of African-American novelist, essayist and poet Richard Wright with free public events Saturday (April 12) and Sunday (April 13). Multiple campus units will present dramatic readings, scholarly papers and more to mark the centennial of Wright’s birth.

The son of an illiterate sharecropper and a school teacher, Wright was born Sept. 4, 1908, in Mississippi. His writing career was launched when his short story collection, “Uncle Tom’s Children” (1938), won first prize in a Story magazine contest.

Between 1940 and 1941, Wright collaborated with Paul Green, a playwright and UNC professor of dramatic art and philosophy, to write a stage adaptation of Wright’s novel “Native Son.” A dramatic reading of the adaptation will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (April 12) in Gerrard Hall. For free tickets, contact the Memorial Hall Box Office at (919) 843-3333, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.

On Sunday, Wright’s daughter, Julia Wright, will present her paper “Richard Wright’s Premonition of Katrina in his Flood Stories” as part of a Centennial Colloquium at 1 p.m. in Hyde Hall. Other papers about the author also will be presented, and UNC English professors will comment. For free tickets, contact Carry Matthews at the Institute for Arts and Humanities at crmatthe@email.unc.edu.

A Richard Wright Centennial Commemorative will begin at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Memorial Hall. Julia Wright, local thespians and others will perform a dramatic narrative of Wright’s life and perform readings of his work. Film clips and documentary footage will be interwoven with Wright’s letters, poetry and music. For free tickets, contact the Memorial Hall Box Office at (919) 843-3333, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.

For more information, visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/csas/Conferences/richcardwright.html .

Centennial contact: Jonah Garson, (919) 619-5467, jonahgarson@gmail.com

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