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A Memoir
by Prince Shakur
Prince Shakur's debut memoir brilliantly mines his radicalization and self-realization through examinations of place, childhood, queer identity, and a history of uprisings.
After immigrating from Jamaica to the United States, Prince Shakur's family is rocked by the murder of Prince's biological father in 1995. Behind the murder is a sordid family truth, scripted in the lines of a diary by an outlawed uncle hell-bent on avenging the murder of Prince's father. As Shakur begins to unravel his family's secrets, he must navigate the strenuous terrain of coming to terms with one's inner self while confronting the steeped complexities of the Afro-diaspora.
When They Tell You to Be Good charts Shakur's political coming of age from closeted queer kid in a Jamaican family to radicalized adult traveler, writer, and anarchist in Obama and Trump's America. Shakur journeys from France to the Philippines, South Korea, and elsewhere to discover the depths of the Black experience, and engages in deep political questions while participating in movements like Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock. By the end, Shakur reckons with his identity, his family's immigration, and the intergenerational impacts of patriarchal and colonial violence.
Examining a tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, When They Tell You to Be Good shines a light on what we all must ask of ourselves―to be more than what America envisions for the oppressed―as Shakur compels readers to take a closer, deeper look at the political world of young, Black, queer, and radical millennials today.
"Shakur delivers an evocative, intimate, and also analytical exploration of self and various political landscapes. This beautifully written memoir is an absolute must-read." - Library Journal (starred review)
"[A] moving portrait of the artist as a young activist, powered by Shakur's captivating prose, 'the plywood, nails, and sails that sent me off into a world of my own making.' The result is a searing account of self-discovery in the face of structural oppression." - Publishers Weekly
"A scorching, nonlinear journey through a Black man's search for self." - Kirkus Reviews
"A story that combines so much―sociocultural criticism, religion, and politics while centering on the microcosm of one Jamaican family and the aftermath of two male relatives' untimely deaths... Commands a tension and doesn't release you well after the last sentence." - Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America
"Shakur writes from a place of honesty that is both searing and poignant in its transparency. His story will resonate deeply for those who hold hidden stories of sadness and grief tightly behind a smiling public mask." - Khadijah Ali-Coleman
This information about When They Tell You To Be Good was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Prince Shakur is a queer, Jamaican-American freelance journalist, cultural essayist, and grassroots organizer with a BA in Creative Writing from Ohio University. His words have been featured in Teen Vogue, Catapult, Level, Electric Lit, and more. In addition, Shakur is the proud writer in residence at Sangam House, Twelve Arts, The Studios of Key West, and La Maison Baldwin. He is the host of the Creative Hour podcast and founder of Millennial Writer Life.
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