Breakout

Breakout is a seminal work in African-American literature that further exposes the imposed separation between so-called "black" and "white" cultures, recounting the buried thoughts and feelings of two African-American men who came of age in predominantly white academic environments. Leaving categories behind, Wright and his companion have a personal conversation dealing with the universal aspects of a misshapen culture, including materialism, racism, and the denial of true individualism, while expressing the complexities of being black in America and negotiating educational opportunity, taboos, questions of "selling out," and definitions of success. An everyman's autobiographical novel with a twist, Breakout leaves the reader knowing that asking the avoided questions and being true to one's self is the pivotal beginning of any quest for knowledge, as individuals and as a nation of amalgamated identities.