American essayist and journalist Richard Rodriguez, whose autobiographical essays are frequently assigned in college writing courses, is best known to readers as a memoirist and cultural critic who writes about issues of race, language, identity, and spirituality. His four autobiographical books—Hunger of Memory, Days of Obligation, Brown, and Darling—have gained Rodriguez a reputation as both a prose stylist and a provocative essayist who is not afraid to take a controversial stance when writing about both the personal and public dimensions of politically-charged issues such as assimilation, affirmative action, bilingual education, and gay marriage.

Though he might object to being classified as …

2894 words

Citation: Garcia, Michael Nieto. "Richard Rodriguez". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 May 2011; last revised 19 August 2015. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12900, accessed 29 March 2024.]

12900 Richard Rodriguez 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.