- Sue Kwong
This winter, the Reader has set a humble goal for itself: to determine the Greatest Chicago Book Ever Written. We chose 16 books that reflected the wide range of books that have come out of Chicago and the wide range of people who live here and assembled them into an NCAA-style bracket. Then we recruited a crack team of writers, editors, booksellers, and scholars as well as a few Reader staffers to judge each bout. The results of each contest will be published every Monday, along with an essay by each judge explaining his or her choice. The Reader reader who best predicts the judges’ rulings will win a trip to Mexico.
Both authors bring impeccable credentials to their books. Who better to write about black male rage in Chicago than Richard Wright? He was born in Mississippi as a grandson of slaves and the son of a sharecropper who finally left the south and moved to Chicago where he worked at a post office and also swept streets. Like so many African-Americans who migrated to Chicago, Wright fell prey to bouts of poverty. Along the way, his frustration with American capitalism led him to join the Communist Party in 1932.
Just 21 percent of you, the voters, predicted that The Warmth of Other Suns would advance. Voting for round two begins January 13.
