David Wright is an American writer. Wright grew up in Borger, Texas. His mother is a white Jewish woman who survived the Nazi occupation of Paris. Her parents were affluent, assimilated French Jews. His mother was a member of the French Communist Party; she immigrated to the US in the 1950s as the GI bride of an African-American soldier.
He holds a BA from Carleton College and an MFA from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also studied at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Before he started teaching creative writing, he was a player/coach on various American football teams in Paris and London. He teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but lives in Texas.
He has also published under the name “David Wright Faladé,” in honor of his biological father, Max Faladé, from Porto-Novo in Benin, the grandson of Béhanzin, the last King of Dahomey.
Books in order of publication:
Fire on the beach: recovering the lost story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island lifesavers – 2000
Black Cloud Rising – 2022
The New Internationals, Grove Press, January 2025.
Oak Lawn Library Friends 