Street lit : representing the urban landscape / edited by Keenan Norris ; foreword by Omar Tyree.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Over the last few decades, the genre of urban fiction--or street lit--has become increasingly popular as more novels secure a place on bestseller lists that were once the domain of mainstream authors. In the 1970s, pioneers such as Donald Goines, Iceberg Slim, and Claude Brown paved the way for today's street fiction novelists, poets, and short story writers, including Sister Souljah, Kenji Jasper, and Colson Whitehead.



In Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape, Keenan Norris has assembled a varied collection of articles, essays, interviews, and poems that capture the spirit of urban fiction and nonfiction produced from the 1950s through the present day. Providing both critical analyses and personal insights, these works explore the street lit phenomenon to help readers understand how and why this once underground genre has become such a vital force in contemporary literature. Interviews with literary icons David Bradley, Gerald Early, and Lynel Gardner are balanced with critical discussions of works by Goines, Jasper, Whitehead, and others.



With an introduction by Norris that explores the roots of street lit, this collection defines the genre for today's readers and provides valuable insights into a cultural force that is fast becoming as important to the American literary scene as hip-hop is to music. Featuring a foreword by bestselling novelist Omar Tyree (Flyy Girl) and comprised of works by scholars, established authors, and new voices, Street Lit will inspire any reader who wants to understand the significance of this sometimes controversial but unquestionably popular art form.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Norris (English, African American literature, Evergreen Valley Coll.; Brother and the Dancer) and contributors (academics, authors, poets, editors, musicians, and a lawyer) broaden the definition of urban literature while drawing a distinction between African American and hip-hop literature and emphasizing the differences between classic African American literature and street literature. This title offers a course in the genre in 16 signed essays with references and bibliographies; six poems by Tristan Acker, Debra Busman, Sterling Warner, Arisa White, and Juan Delgado; and interviews with authors Lynel Gardner, David Bradley, and Ethan Iverson. The poems are each one to two pages long, the essays four to 18 pages, and the interviews two to 16. A few black-and-white photos appear in Ana Lucia Souza and Jacqueline Lima Santos's essay on Brazilian hip-hop. A cumulative bibliography and detailed index round out the presentation. VERDICT Since it is a relatively new literary genre, little expository material has been published on urban or street literature, making this affordable title of interest to literature students at the undergraduate and graduate levels.-Laurie Selwyn, formerly with Grayson Cty. Law Lib., -Sherman, TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Although broadly speaking American urban literature includes the work of sociologists like Jacob Riis, noir novelists including Dashiell Hammett, and naturalist writers like Richard Wright and Ann Petry, Norris focuses on writers who have more recently come to define the genre. Produced largely by African American and Latino writers, "street lit" (also known as urban literature or hip-hop fiction) is a genre characterized by frank depictions of sex, drugs, and violence. What results are gritty, realistic, and often ignored views of the urban experience. Including a variety of material, Norris weaves essays and interviews--from contributors both inside and outside the academy--with demonstrative poems and short fiction in an attempt to show the mass appeal and cultural significance of such texts. The first of three sections provides an overview of street literature past and present; the remaining two sections examine "early street" (1950s-70s) and "contemporary street lit" (1990s-2000s). Several essays offer overviews, so the book is at times redundant. However, as a whole, this is a valuable resource, given the lack of previous scholarly attention to the genre. The book is also intriguing for the insight it offers into the tension between street lit and canonical African American literature. --Patrick Naick, Coe College

Booklist Review

The foreword alone, by Omar Tyree, makes this book a must for fans both true to the game (as street-lit vernacular would state) of the genre and new to the game alike. Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape serves as a history lesson of the genre in its various forms, tracing the trajectory of slave narratives from the Donald Goines and Iceburg Slim era to the days of Flyy Girl (1993) and The Coldest Winter Ever (1999) to today's vociferous offerings from the powerhouse urban-literature publishers Triple Crown and Urban Books.The book is made up of essays deftly divided into three sections that invite discussion and reflection: Street Literature in America, Past and Present ; Early Street Lit, 1950s-1970s ; and Contemporary Street Lit, 1990s and 2000s. These essays take a hard, honest look at the way street lit is marketed, packaged, promoted, and perceived by its intended audience and by those on the outside looking in on a slice of modern street life. The book includes an index as well as an extensive bibliography of articles and accessible book lists of notable works that best represent this popular genre. Although the content is aimed at an academic library audience, this would make a good choice for public library literary-criticism shelves, and librarians interested in developing street-lit collections will want to add this title to their professional reading lists.--Jones, Joslyn Copyright 2014 Booklist