Urban fiction, also known as street lit is a literary genre set, as the name implies, in a city landscape; however, the genre is as much defined by the socio-economic realities and culture of its characters as the urban setting. The tone for urban fiction is usually dark, focusing on the underside of city living. Profanity, sex, and violence are usually explicit, with the writer not shying away from or watering-down the material.
Genesis and historical forces behind urban fiction
Contemporary urban fiction was (and largely still is) a genre written by and for African Americans. In his famous essay “The Souls of Black Folk,†W. E. B. Du Bois discussed how a veil separated the African American community from the outside world. By extension, fiction written by people outside the African American culture could not (at least with any degree of verisimilitude) depict the people, settings, and events experienced by people in that culture. Try as some might, those who grew up outside the veil (i.e., outside the urban culture) simply could not write fiction truly grounded in inner-city and African American life.
City novels of yesteryear that depict the low-income survivalist realities of city living can also be considered urban fiction or street lit. In her book, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Street Literature (2011), Vanessa Irvin Morris points out that titles considered canonical or "classic" today, could be considered the urban fiction or "street lit" of its day. Titles that depict historical inner-city realities include Stephen Crane's Maggie, A Girl of the Streets (1893), Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1838) and Paul Laurence Dunbar's The Sport of the Gods (1902). In this vein, urban fiction is not just an African American or Latino phenomenon, but rather, the genre exists along a historical continuum that includes stories from diverse cultural and ethnic experiences.
Emergence of contemporary urban fiction
In the 1970s, during the culmination of the Black Power movement, a jailed Black man named Robert Beck took the pen name Iceberg Slim and wrote Pimp, a dark, gritty tale of life in the inner-city underworld. While the book contained elements of the Black Power agenda, it was most notable for its unsparing depiction of street life. Iceberg Slim wrote many other novels and attained an international following. Some of the terminology he used in his books crossed over into the lexicon of Black English. Other writers included Donald Goines and, notably, Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land, which was published in 1965. Also published that year was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Because this non-fictional read captured the realistic nature of African American urban life for coming-of-age young men, the book has consistently served as a standard for reading among African American teenaged boys.
Hip hop lit: hip hop music as an urban ballad
During the 1980s and early 1990s, urban fiction in print experienced a decline. However, one could make a cogent argument that urban tales simply moved from print to music, as hip hop music exploded in popularity, with harsh, gritty stories such as "The Message" and "Dopeman," set to a driving, strident drum-kit rhythm. Of course, for every emcee who signed a recording contract and made the airwaves, ten more amateurs plied the streets and local clubs, much like urban bards, griots or troubadours telling urban fiction in an informal, oral manner rather than in a neat, written form. One of the most famous emcees, Tupac Shakur, is sometimes called a ghetto prophet and an author of urban fiction in lyrical form. Shakur's early poetry was posthumously complied into a volume entitled The Rose That Grew from Concrete (book) in 1999.
Modern hip-hop literature in print form is a thriving and popular genre. Many non-fiction publications from figures in the hip-hop realm such as Russell Simmons, Kevin Liles, LL Cool J, and FUBU founder Daymond John feature prominently in this genre. Well-known female personas such as Carmen Bryant, Karrine Steffans, and shock jock Wendy Williams have written blockbuster books for this audience. Both Steffans and emcee 50 Cent have had such success with their books that they were given their own imprints to usher in similar authors, such as for 50 Cent's G-Unit Books.
Contemporary street lit: The new wave of urban fiction
1990s
Toward the end of the 1990s, urban fiction experienced a revival, as demand for novels authentically conveying the urban experience increased, and new business models enabled fledgling writers to more easily bring a manuscript to market. One of the first writers in this new cycle of urban fiction was Omar Tyree, who published the novel Flyy Girl in 1996, reissued as a reprint in 1999. The genre gained significant momentum in 1999 with Sister Souljah's bestseller The Coldest Winter Ever. Teri Woods's True to the Game was also published in 1999, and became the standard from which the entrepreneurial publishing and distribution of contemporary urban fiction took note. The simultaneous publishing of these three novels created a momentum of readership for urban fiction and carried that wave for years. Thus The Coldest Winter Ever, True to the Game, and Flyy Girl are considered classics in the renaissance of the genre.
Sister Souljah describes the untapped market for urban fiction and the stereotypes that held it back in its early years:
2000â€"today
In less than a decade, urban fiction has experienced a renaissance that boasts hundreds of titles. The newest wave of street fiction is urban Latino fiction novels such as Devil's Mambo by Jerry Rodriguez, Chained by Deborah Cardona (a.k.a. Sexy) and Jeff Rivera's Forever My Lady.
Major writers of contemporary urban fiction include Ashley & JaQuavis Coleman, K'wan Foye, Treasure E. Blue, Wahida Clark, Anthony Whyte, Erick Gray, Shannon Holmes, Deborah Cardona, Vickie Stringer, Miasha, T.N. Baker, Deja King, Solomon Jones, Nikki Turner, Jeff Rivera, Brittani Williams and the writing duo Meesha Mink & De'Nesha Diamond. Other notable urban-fiction writers include Kole Black, author of The Chance Series One woman's desperate attempt to escape the grips of a psychotic ex-boyfriend & his murderous drug cartel. *Contains THE RISK OF CHANCE, THE GAME OF CHANCE, plus DRAMA & CHANCE, Which spawn a series spin off entitled Cincinnati's Finest â€" The story of four female police officers whose lifetime friendship is put to the ultimate test by a horrific tragedy that forces each of them to prove their loyalty, not only to one another, but to the code of honor they each swore a solemn oath to uphold., released 2013 by Spaulden Publishing. In 2009, the first known urban Islamic fiction novel The Size of a Mustard Seed by Maryam "Umm Juwayriyah" Sullivan was published. Feeling the absence of stories like her own, Sullivan created her novel as a natural evolution of urban fiction, portraying the lives of multi-generational, inner-city American Muslims of various and blended backgrounds. Also that same year, Clifford Spud Johnson came on the scene with his novel "Kalifornia Luv" and then released "Gangsta Twist 1 & 2" in 2011. In 2010, Rahiem Brooks released Laugh Now, and followed up in 2011 with the sequel Die Later and his mystery novel, Con Test: Double Life. Rahiem Brooks is noted for creating the Urban Literary Awards (http://www.urbanliteraryawards.com), which is uniquely broadcasts on Blog Talk Radio with live presenters and award acceptances.
There is also an unexpected literary wave of hip-hop fiction and street lit, which was sparked by Sister Souljah. Authors with a book or books in this offering include SofÃa Quintero, who writes as Black Artemis; E-Fierce, also known as Elisha Miranda; Heru Ptah; Ferentz Lafargue; Saul Williams; Abiola Abrams; Felicia Pride; Marcella Runell Hall; and Martha Diaz. These are hip hop lit or street lit books that take a more literary approach using metaphor, signifying and other literary devices. These books may also be used in socially redeeming or classroom capacities, while maintaining love and positivity for the music and hip hop culture.
With this new wave of renaissance, "street lit" was breaking new ground when it came to promotion and exposure. Aside from hand-to-hand sales, which seems to work best in a genre where word-of-mouth has proven to be worth more than any large ad campaign, the Internet has increased the authors' and publishers' ability to reach out to the genre's readers. With Internet savvy, many self-published authors who once had no shot of recognition are now household names, such as author Rasheed Clark, who went from relatively unknown, to being honored with fourteen Infini Literary Award nominations for his first two novels, Stories I Wouldn't Tell Nobody But God and Cold Summer Afternoon, both of which became instant bestsellers and proved that Clark was a fresh voice in African American fiction, and a leading African-American writer.
From online book groups and Web sites such as StreetLiterature.com, QBR, RawSistaz, Urban Reviews, and Coast 2 Coast Readers to e-zines such as The Urban Book Source, African Americans on the move Book Club (AAMBC) is widely known for promoting over 500 urban novels (http://aambookclub.com), Internet sites geared toward Urban readers are making themselves felt and can often make the difference between a bestseller and a book that does not receive adequate readership.
Authors in this genre such as K'wan Foye, Nikki Turner, Kole Black, and Relentless Aaron are known for bringing street teams and other musical promotion efforts to the book scene. In recent years, these authors have joined with hip hop artists such as 50 Cent to further promote the genre by penning the musicians' real-life stories. In 2010, the hip hop music label, Cash Money Records, established a publishing branch to their brand, Cash Money Content. Cash Money Content has recruited the best street lit authors in the game, Wahida Clark, husband and wife team Ashley and JaQuavis Coleman, K'wan Foye and Treasure E. Blue and is actively publishing and promoting street lit novels as well as working to move some of the stories to the movie screen.
Vickie Stringer is an urban lit author, as well as founder and CEO of her own publishing company, Triple Crown Publications, a publisher of 45 novels and 35 writers as of 2008.
Street Lit is not just the preserve of African-American and Latino stories. Australian author Perry Gamsby has a Street Lit series that addresses real life issues in a contemporary, working class Australian urban setting. The low socio-economic suburb of Mt Druitt and its satellite suburbs including Emerton and Whalan Whalan, New South Wales feature in his three novels to date: 'The Cool Side of the Pillow' (2006), 'Twenty Seven Seventy' (2011) and 'Never Be Unsaid' (2013). Against the trend of including heavy profanity, Gamsby makes a point that you can still portray authentic dialogue between characters while avoiding the most common swear word and its derivatives.[5]
Criticism
Early criticism of street lit was that books were badly edited due to lack of copy editing by independent publishers. However, in recent years the mainstream publishing industry recognized the genre's potential and signed many street lit authors to contracts, thus producing better packaged product. One such author was Treasure E. Blue, according to Kirkus Reviews Magazine, a self-published sensationâ€"it has reportedly sold 65,000 copies before getting signed to a major six-figure deal with Random House Publishing.
The reach of urban fiction into a large youth readership is undeniable today. Researchers have turned their attention to its influence on urban literacy, particularly among adolescent girls. Despite misgivings about editing quality issues, secondary school teachers in suburban settings have included urban literature in curricula, referring to it as "multicultural young adult literature" to expose students to "authentic" voices representing urban life.
References
Research articles
- Morris, V. I. (2011). The Street Lit Author and the Inner-City Teen. Journal of Young Adult Library Service 10(1), 21â€"24.
- Morris, V.I. (2010). Street Lit: Before you recommend it, you have to understand it. In Urban Teens in the Library: Research and Practice. (pp. 53â€"66). Chicago: American Library Association.
- Brooks, W. & Savage, L. (2009). Critiques and Controversies of Street Literature: A Formidable Genre. The ALAN Review, 37(3), 48â€"55.
- Hill, M.L., Perez, B., & Irby, D. (2008). Street fiction: What is it and what does it mean for English teachers ? English Journal, 97(3), 76â€"81.
- Morris, V. I., Hughes-Hassell, S., Agosto, D. E., & Cottman, D. T. (2006). Street Lit: Flying off teen fiction bookshelves in Philadelphia public libraries. Young Adult Library Services, 5(1), 16â€"23.
Books
- Morris, Vanessa Irvin (2011). The Readers' Advisory Guide to Street Literature. American Library Association. ISBN 0838911102.
- Honig, Megan (2010). Urban Grit: A Guide to Street Lit. Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 159158857X.
- Ratner, Andrew. (2009). Street Lit: Teaching and Reading Fiction in Urban Schools. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0073378437.
External links
- Lit Up: Keisha Ervin's gritty tales of the St. Louis streets have made her one of the nation's hottest purveyors of urban fiction Riverfront Times. April 2009.
- Readers Embrace 'Ghetto Lit' Genre, National Public Radio Morning Edition, January 20, 2004.
- Publishing Company Called Out over 'Ghetto Lit', National Public Radio All Things Considered, October 12, 2007.
- New literary genre emerging from underground authors, San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 2003.
- Nick Chiles: Don't call this smut 'literature', Dallas News, January 8, 2006.
- StreetFiction.org: An Urban Fiction Review Web Site
- Street Literature: Poundin' the Pavement to Bring You The Word On Street Lit, blog site by Vanessa Irvin Morris.
Reading lists
Because this genre is very popular with urban teenagers, the following reading lists should prove to be helpful for teachers and librarians.
- Resources for Street Lit: Books, Blogs, & Lists by Vanessa Irvin Morris, Drexel Univ., Phila, PA
- SpeakEasy: Articles About and/or Related to Street Lit by Vanessa Irvin Morris, Drexel Univ., Phila, PA
- Urban/Street Fiction Title/Author List by Miranda Doyle, San Francisco Public Library
- African American Book Club Urban/Street Fiction List
- Crazy Quilts Blog with Urban Lit for School Library Collections by Edith Campbell, Arlington High School, Indianapolis, IN
- Library Journal. [6]