A reciprocal interest between sociology and literature marked much of the writing of the 1930s. A number of cultural links - forged in the attempt to confront, portray, condemn or predict the reality provided the intellectual environment for such exchange. Three important links consisted of the John Reed Clubs, the League of American Writers, and the Federal Writers' Project; in the products of these groups - the proletarian literature, the social writings, as well as the guidebooks, history books, life-stories and folklore collections - one can clearly notice the affinity of interests between literary and sociological discourse. The career of Richard Wright for a whole decade ran parallel to these three phases. Like James Farrell and Saul Bellow, he had discovered the kinship of literature and sociology under the aegis of the Chicago School of Urban Sociology. His two-volume autobiography Black Boy and American Hunger - remains a most emblematic product of such intellectual grafting.1 More specifically, it remains a remarkable expression of the tendencies which made the convergence of sociology and literature possible: on the one hand the tendency towards a more subjective sociology which rediscovered the subjectivity of the individual beneath its uniform-looking statistics; on the other the tendency towards a more objective literature which rediscovered the individual's unbreachable ties with his or her culture and environment. The following discussion will explore these themes through the privileged observation point of Black Boy and American Hunger.2 Richard Wright's appropriation of a theoretical framework from sociology and the content of the exchange will provide the two main axes of study. Richard Wright's association with the Chicago School of Urban Sociology - our departure point here and an important phase in his career - has been an obligatory point of reference for his biographers. With greater or lesser detail, Wright's biographers have generally summarized the facts, dates, and names of his sociological readings and friendships.3 Louis Wirth, Robert Park, Horace Cayton, Franklin Frazier- the main names on the list - are also the names that spell out the early