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Autobiography of the Lower East Side

by Rashidah Ismaili

4.5 of 5 stars 4.50 · rating details · 4 ratings · 2 reviews

"This well established poet makes a brilliant debut in fiction with these complex, poetically detailed, interrelated stories of Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean and the USA who converge and form an artistic community in the early 1960s in the most easterly regions of Alphabet City ." -David Henderson, author of 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky "Ismaili charts the lower East "This well established poet makes a brilliant debut in fiction with these complex, poetically detailed, interrelated stories of Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean and the USA who converge and form an artistic community in the early 1960s in the most easterly regions of Alphabet City ." -David Henderson, author of 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky "Ismaili charts the lower East side just prior to the turbulent, revolutionary Sixties, when the influence of Leroi Jones and the Black Arts Movement signaled a cultural sea-change. Her characters persevere through desertion, loss, abandonment and betrayal, to achieve fulfillment in a fractured society." - Vinnie Burrows "A sensuous and intimate portrait of a place and a generation. Belongs in the canon of American literary and socio-political classics, alongside Diane di Prima, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, Vivian Gornick, and Jack Kerouac. A masterpiece." - Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots and Help Wanted: Female Autobiography of the Lower East Side is a novel in short stories, set in New York during the late nineteen-fifties and the turbulent decade that followed. Inhale the exotic spices from tenement hallways, smell the sweat and garbage in the streets, feel the sweltering heat of summer in the City. Taste the texture and densities of African dishes: the rice and pepper sauce, stewed fruits, tagine, okra soup, bread and fish. Walk the alphabet streets in the daytime, weaving among pushcarts, or at night in the biting winds of winter, footsteps too close at your back. Sway to the cool jazz. Groove to the lilt of African voices reciting poetry, intoning prayers. Follow a junkie riding out a Jones, an anarchist handing out pamphlets, a pacifist leading a draft resister on the Underground route from New York City to Canada. The Autobiography of the Lower East Side pulsates with the heartbeat of Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1960s, its artists and activists caught in the racial, sexual, political, and class tensions of the era. Ismaili's richly-evoked setting presents characters learning to survive in the jazz scene, the theater, and the arts while dealing with interracial relationships, abuse, addiction, and the toll of the Vietnam draft. ...more

Paperback , 238 pages

Published April 1st 2014 by Northampton House Press

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Fiction that Features NYC

20th out of 56 books — 64 voters

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Jan 27, 2015 Dania Ramos rated it 5 of 5 stars

In Autobiography of the Lower East Side, Rashidah Ismaili takes readers on a journey back to a time when the neighborhood in question was a hub of artists, advocates and scholars pushing societal boundaries. Rashidah expertly intertwines several plot-lines, told in a series of related short stories, and introduces several distinct voices from this cultured community.

One of the people we meet is Nusa, a young mother originally from a country in West Africa, who holds several jobs and is pursuing ...more

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Jun 16, 2014 Kenneth Sutton rated it 5 of 5 stars

This not a popcorn read, good, fun, and done. It is a full course meal made of a world fashioned from memory and myth, meant to be taken slowly, course by course, and savored. I deliberately delayed finishing it to prolong my pleasure and it sits in my bookcase for a future rereading.
Ken Sutton

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