A01=Alex Wheatle
Author_Alex Wheatle
BAME
black
black British
black lives matter
black writing
BLM
Brixton
brixton bard
brixton rock
cane warriors
Category=FBA
Crongton
Crongton Knights
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Gabriel Krauze
Guy Gunaratne
Merky
south london
Steve McQueen
Product details
- ISBN 9781846686573
- Weight: 159g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 02 Apr 2009
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Brixton, twenty years after the race riots. Teenager Dennis Huggins drifts into the easy, dangerous life of the shotta - or drug dealer - and discovers that, hard as the struggle for respect on the streets is, the struggle for love is harder still.
At least Dennis has involved parents looking out for him; too many of his friends drift through life with no positive influences or moral code; their only 'family' their fellow dealers. Wheatle brilliantly evokes the temptations of the thug life for young black men growing up in London's 'Dirty South' - this is a fast, compelling novel that offers no easy answers, but refuses to shy away from asking the difficult questions.
Alex Wheatle (1963-2025) was born to Jamaican parents living in London. He spent most of his childhood in a children's home, which he left at 14 to live in a hostel in Brixton. At 18, he was involved in the Brixton uprising and went to prison for 3 months. On his release, he continued to perform as a DJ and MC under the name Yardman Irie, moving on to the performance poetry circuit as The Brixton Bard in the early '90s. His second novel, East of Acre Lane, won the London New Writers Award (2000). In 2008, he was awarded an MBE for services to literature.
