Pagan Spain

A master chronicler of the African-American experience, Richard Wright brilliantly expanded his literary horizons with Pagan Spain, originally published in 1957. An amalgam of expert travel reportage, dramatic monologue, and arresting sociological critique, Pagan Spain serves as a pointed and still-relevant commentary on the grave human dangers of oppression and governmental corruption.

The Spain Richard Wright visited in the mid-twentieth century was not the romantic locale of song and story, but a place of tragic beauty and dangerous contradictions. The portrait he offers in Pagan Spain is a blistering, powerful, yet scrupulously honest depiction of a land and people in turmoil, caught in the strangling dual grip of cruel dictatorship and what Wright saw as an undercurrent of primitive faith. 

Wright’s unflinching journey into the heart of a nation held hostage by its past reveals:

• An African-American Author’s Perspective: The celebrated author of Native Son and Black Boy turns his keen eye for social dynamics to mid-century Europe, offering a unique and powerful outsider’s view.
• Unflinching Social Commentary: A blistering depiction of a nation in turmoil, where poverty, fear, and a rigid class structure defined daily life under an oppressive regime.
• Catholicism and Paganism: Wright delves beneath the surface of official religion to explore what he saw as the primitive, pagan undercurrents of faith that shaped the Spanish character.
• A Landmark of Travel Literature: More than a travelogue, this is a deep cultural and political analysis of a country that, to Wright, was geographically in Europe but psychologically somewhere else entirely.