The Resume

(September 4, 1908-November 28, 1960)
Born in Adams County, Mississippi
Wrote the novels 'Native Son' (1940), 'The Outsider' (1953) and 'The Long Dream' (1958)
Wrote the autobiography 'Black Boy' (1945)
Also wrote '12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States' (1941), 'I Choose Exile' (1951), 'Black Power' (1954), 'White Man, Listen!' (1957) and 'Haiku: This Other World' (published posthumously, 1998)
Became a French citizen (1947)

Why he might be annoying:

He joined the Communist Party.
Some critics complained that 'Native Son' portrayed a black man in a way that confirmed whites' worst fears.
In 'Black Boy,' he wrote that he used to run by stores with Jewish owners shouting, 'Bloody Christ killers! Never trust a Jew!'

Why he might not be annoying:

His sharecropper father abandoned the family.
He was able to borrow books from a 'whites only' public library by forging a note from a white patron: 'Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by H. L. Mencken?'
Some black Communists denounced him as a bourgeois intellectual for being well-spoken.
'Native Son' was the first novel by a black author selected by the Book of the Month Club.
Unexpurgated versions of 'Native Son' and 'Black Boy' were finally published in 1991.

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• 100 Most Frequently Banned or Challenged Books [2000-09] (Ranked: 81)
• Blacklisted
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 12]
• Celebrities Born on the Same Date [September] (Ranked: 9041908)
• Dicks and Johnsons
• Exiles
• Guggenheim Fellowship Grant Recipients
• I am a Citizen of France
• I am a Seventh-Day Adventist
• I am on a U.S. Postage Stamp [U-Z]
• I Died in 1960 (Ranked: 52)
• I Married Outside My Race
• I Write Bildungsroman
• I'm a Communist
• I'm Buried in the Pere Lachaise in Paris
• Look at Me, I'm Reading
• Modern Library's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century (Ranked: 13)
• Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century [1998] (Ranked: 20)
• NPR's 100 Best Literary Characters of the 20th Century [Authors - 2002] (Ranked: 20)
• People who Have Similar Names on Am I Annoying (Ranked: 381)
• Postal Workers
• Profiles 23001-23250 (Ranked: 23145)
• Renounced U.S. Citizenship
• Spingarn Medal Winners (Ranked: 1941)
• Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels [Authors]
• UK Guardian's Neil Griffith's Top 10 Books About Outsiders [2007] (Ranked: 9)
• Valedictorians

Year In Review:

For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2023, Out of 167 Votes: 60.48% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 8 Votes: 12.50% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 18 Votes: 77.78% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 24 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 103 Votes: 61.17% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 27 Votes: 51.85% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 42 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
In 2013, Out of 18 Votes: 61.11% Annoying
In 2012, Out of 404 Votes: 80.20% Annoying
In 2011, Out of 107 Votes: 74.77% Annoying
In 2010, Out of 95 Votes: 56.84% Annoying
In 2009, Out of 41 Votes: 70.73% Annoying
In 2008, Out of 25 Votes: 52.00% Annoying