Published by Harper and Brothers in 1940 and offered that year as a main selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club, Native Son remains Wright's most (in)famous work. The text was almost immediately made into a play, and later the movie version appeared.

In his introduction to the HarperPerennial edition, Arnold Rampersand writes "The sound of the alarm that opens Native Son was Richard Wright's urgent call in 1940 to America to awaken from its self-induced slumber about the reality of race relations in the nation. [...] Native Son is a story that is at one level a seedy melodrama from the police blotter and, at the same time, an illuminating drama of an individual consciousness that challenges traditional definitions of character" [1].

Native Son tends to be the big text for Wright critics. Several collections of essays specifically on this novel are available. They include Approaches to Teaching Wright's Native Son (edited by James A. Miller, published by the MLA in 1997), Richard Wright's Native Son: A Critical Handbook (Richard Abcarian, published by Wadsworth in 1970), Twentieth Century Interpretations of Native Son (edited by Houston Baker, published by Prentice-Hall in 1972), and Richard Wright's Native Son (Paul Jude Beauvais, published by Chelsea House in 1988).

For a bibliography of criticism on Native Son, go here.