«Sono finiti i tempi in cui scoprivamo l’America». Pavese recensore di Black Boy di Richard Wright

In May 1947 Cesare Pavese reviewed Richard Wright's novel Black Boy (1941). It will be the last monographic essay dedicated by Pavese to an American writer. Pavese had dealt with American literature from his youth, starting with his graduation thesis dedicated to Walt Whitman and subsequently with a long series of essays on authors including Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Lee Masters. In the review of Wright’s novel, however, Pavese expresses with conviction the idea that, following the war and in the new Italian cultural climate free from Fascism, American literature has ceased to offer itself as a viable alternative. The "positive myth" of America is thus called into question, although in conclusion Pavese does not completely detach himself from it.