Manchild in the Promised Land
by Claude Brown
Born in 1937 in Harlem, New York, Claude Brown spent his childhood "roaming the streets with junkies, whores, pimps, hustlers, the `mean cats' and the ...
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Critical Essay by Eliot Fremont-smith
The scene [in "Manchild in the Promised Land"] is Harlem, the street, the trap, and the first word of Mr. Brown's narrative is the imperativ...
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Critical Essay by Arnold Rampersad
Harlem is once again on Claude Brown's mind, and it should be on ours. With Manchild in the Promised Land and now The Children of Ham, he has established him...
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Critical Essay by Chris Smith
Eleven years ago Claude Brown published an autobiographical masterpiece, Manchild in the Promised Land. It poignantly told white America what it meant to grow up in the ...
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Critical Essay by Nat Hentoff
There are strengths in Manchild in the Promised Land, and for some there will be more basic discoveries than the guided tour of violence, junk, hookers and "corre...
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Critical Essay by Romulus Linney
Claude Brown's "Manchild in the Promised Land" is the autobiography of a young man who grew up in Harlem. It is a Pilgrim's Progress throu...
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Critical Essay by William Mathes
The book came to me along with the summer's meager trickle of new offerings, at a time when publishers seem to be lying low, waiting to spring their really imp...
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Critical Essay by George Dennison
Claude Brown's story of growing up in Harlem deals at great length with juvenile crime, the life in the streets, poverty, the curtailment of schooling, change...
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Critical Essay by Ann Allen Shockley
Two very pointed autobiographies heavily instilled with that very elusive but provocative term called soul are Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land...
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Critical Essay by Ishmael Reed
In case you haven't heard, scag is another name for heroin. Substitute the word devil for scag and The Children of Ham, Claude Brown's first book since Ma...
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Shyne was set up to take over the throne, as one of Brooklyn's finest. But those were big shoes to fill - no pun intended. With that voice, we longed for the same depth and wisdom, and verbal gymna...
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One day when Pamela Samuels-Young was 12 and growing up in Compton, she pulled a copy of Claude Brown’s “Manchild in the Promised Land” from her aunt’s bookshelf. She ...
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