Sarah E. Wright

Sarah Elizabeth Wright (December 9, 1928 – September 13, 2009) was an American writer and social activist. Her novel This Child's Gonna Live, published in 1969, was acclaimed by critics and "was among the first to focus on the confluence of race, class and sex".

Biography Sarah Elizabeth Wright was born in Wetipquin, Maryland, and began writing poetry at the age of eight.

In 1949, due to financial hardship, Wright left Howard University without graduating In July 1960 she travelled to Cuba in a trip organized by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. With her acclaimed novel This Child's Gonna Live appearing in 1969, she is considered part of the Black Arts Movement.

Wright died in Manhattan, New York, at the age of 80, as the result of complications of cancer.

Works This Child's Gonna Live (Delacorte Press, 1969) was her only published novel. The New York Times named it an outstanding book of 1969. Told from the perspective of Mariah Upshur, a young woman living in a small fishing village in Maryland, the book depicts the struggle to survive under the multiple pressures of racism, poverty, and disease. The Feminist Press published a new edition of the novel in 1986 and it has remained in print since then.

Wright spent many years working on a second novel, which was never completed. She also published critical essays, a volume of poetry entitled Give Me a Child (Kraft Publishing, 1955, with Lucy Smith); and a nonfiction book for young people, A. Philip Randolph: Integration in the Workplace (Silver Burdett, 1990). Wright's novel is featured in the exhibit concerning the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the African-American Museum of History and Culture.