Zara Wright

Recovering The Legacy of Zara Wright
by Rynetta Davis

The December 25, 1920, Chicago Defender features a "New Book on Market" review that praises Chicago based writer Zara Wright's Black and White Tangled Threads, labeling it "a most remarkable book," noting that "to read this story will be convincing proof that as a writer Mrs. Wright is unexcelled." This review was not the only glowing endorsement of Wright's literary debut. Positive reviews marketing Wright's novel continued to appear in the Chicago Defender throughout the 1920s.

Wright's melodramatic, romantic novel Black and White Tangled Threads and its sequel, Kenneth, explore the complex themes of race consciousness, passing, and interracial marriage. Set in the upper-class social worlds of the United States, mostly Louisiana, Kentucky, England, and Italy, the novels follow two families from the generation after emancipation.

A December 3, 1921 review titled "Gift Book Supreme" acknowledges that Black and White Tangled Threads had been "endorsed by press, pulpit and public," and that the book's author tells a "story that will stand as a monument of greatness in the future years." Similarly, an advertisement in the December 10, 1921, Chicago Defender boasts that the novel is "Unquestionably the best book ever written by one of our own authors ... No home should be without this wonderful book." Moreover, Black and White Tangled Threads appears on a "Survey of Negro Life in Chicago: Books You Should Know and Read" list that promotes the most important books by Negro and white authors. Wright's name appears alongside prominent black writers such as Phillis Wheatly, Sojouner Truth, Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jessie Fauset, and Angelina Weld Grimke.

Wright's novels have languished in obscurity and her literary legacy remains obscured despite positive reviews her novel received upon publication. Although much acclaim appeared in the black press, primarily the Chicago Defender, Zara Wright's name is excluded from contemporary discussions of African American literature and black Chicago based writers.

An obituary dated November 1, 1930, published in the Chicago Defender under the heading, "Mrs. Zara Wright, Author of Black and White Tangled Threads,' Dies," reveals that she was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1865, that she moved to Chicago approximately in 1895, that she died on October 22, 1930, and that she was "active in civic and welfare movements" until a few years prior to her death. That obituary acknowledges that "Mrs. Wright was an outstanding personality in her community. And while she devoted some time to her public service work after the demise of Mr. Wright most of her time was taken up by writing."

Sources: The Cambridge History of American Women's Literature, edited by Dale M. Bauer, NYPL Digital Collections/Souvenir of Negro Progress: Chicago, 1779-1925