Zara Wright was an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

author based in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Her only known published works are '' Black and White Tangled Threads'' and its sequel ''

Kenneth Kenneth is a given name of Gaelic origin. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byna ...

'', published under the same cover in 1920. What information there is about her is found in the preface of her first novel, ''Black and White Tangled Threads'', which was dedicated to her husband, J. Edward Wright, whose memory the book is dedicated to. A favorable one-paragraph review in the ''

Chicago Defender ''The Chicago Defender'' is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim ...

'' described the book as a "realistic portrayal of individuals and events

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

lift one to the heights of earthly ambitions".''Chicago Defender'', December 1920, p. 8. Both novels concern the lives of two families and contain tales of love triangles and hidden racial identities. There are also messages of racial uplift but these are secondary to the melodrama to be found in both novels. It is not known where she was born nor how and when she died.

Books

*''Black and White Tangled Threads''. (Includes the sequel ''Kenneth''.) Chicago; Barnard & Miller, 1920. Reprinted New York: AMS Press, 1975. *

References

* Shockley, Ann Allen. ''Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide'', New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books, 1989. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Zara 20th-century African-American writers 20th-century African-American women writers American writers Writers from Chicago Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown African-American novelists American women novelists Novelists from Illinois 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American novelists