This Life
Regular price
€18.50
A01=Quntos KunQuest
A23=Zachary Lazar
african american
African-American fiction
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
american prison industrial complex
anger
Angola
Author_Quntos KunQuest
automatic-update
behind bars
black author
black fiction
building community
Category1=Fiction
Category=FA
Category=FBA
COP=United States
creating art
crime
criminal justice system
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
enslavement
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
hip hop
history
honesty
incarceration
inmates
Language_English
life sentence
literary fiction
Louisiana
lyrics
oppressive
own voices
PA=Available
poetry
Price_€10 to €20
prison
prose
PS=Active
racism
rap
social justice
softlaunch
southern
southern fiction
system
violence
Product details
- ISBN 9781572842823
- Dimensions: 139 x 215mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jul 2021
- Publisher: Surrey Books,U.S.
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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This Life is the debut novel by Quntos KunQuest, a longtime inmate at Angola, the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary. This marks the appearance of a bold, distinctive new voice, one deeply inflected by hiphop, that delves into the meaning of a life spent behind bars, the human bonds formed therein, and the poetry that even those in the most dire places can create.
Lil Chris is just nineteen when he arrives at Angola as an AU—an admitting unit, a fresh fish, a new vict. He’s got a life sentence with no chance of parole, but he’s also got a clear mind and sharp awareness—one that picks up quickly on the details of the system, his fellow inmates, and what he can do to claim a place at the top. When he meets Rise, a mature inmate who's already spent years in the system, and whose composure and raised consciousness command the respect of the other prisoners, Lil Chris learns to find his way in a system bent on repressing every means he has to express himself.
Lil Chris and Rise channel their questions, frustrations, and pain into rap, and This Life flows with the same cadence that powers their charged verses. It pulses with the heat of impassioned inmates, the oppressive daily routines of the prison yard, and the rap contests that bring the men of the prison together.
This Life is told in a voice that only a man who’s lived it could have—a clipped, urgent, evocative voice that surges with anger, honesty, playfulness, and a deep sense of ugly history. Angola started out as a plantation—and as This Life makes clear, black inmates are still in a kind of enslavement there. This Life is an important debut that commands our attention with the vigor, dynamism, and raw, consciousness-expanding energy of this essential new voice.
Quntos KunQuest was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1976. Since 1996, he has been incarcerated at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola, Louisiana. He is a musician, rapper, visual artist, and novelist.
Zachary Lazar is the author of six books, including Vengeance. He is a professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans.
