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The legendary poet and musician's debut novel is “an impressively crafted urban noir... like an early forerunner of The Wire” (The Independent). Known as the “godfather of rap” and an innovator of spoken-word soul music with songs like The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron wrote his first novel, The Vulture, while he was still a student at Lincoln University. First published to critical acclaim in 1970, it offers “a fascinating portrait of late 60s New York” with the same heart, wit, and urgent social commentary expressed in his music (Mojo). The Vulture is a hip and fast-moving thriller, set in lower Manhattan. It relates the strange story of the murder of a teenage boy called John Lee—told through the words of four men who knew him when he was just another kid working after school, hanging out, waiting for something to happen. “A tense and intriguing murder mystery.” —Mojo “An artist who has crafted witty but crucial insights for Black America.” —The Washington Post

The scathing second novel by the legendary poet, musician and Godfather of Rap is a work of “biting social satire” (Daily Express). Originally published in 1972, Gil Scott-Heron's striking novel The Nigger Factory is a powerful parable of the way in which human beings are conditioned to think, drawing inspiration from Scott-Heron's own experiences as a student in the late 1960's and early 70's. Earl Thomas, student body president at Sutton University, is in a difficult position: struggling with the fact that even a historically black college could be part of a system that still privileges whites, he's also threatened by his fellow students, members of radical activist group MJUMBE. Claiming the time has come for revolution, not reform, the leaders of MJUMBE are poised not only to bring Earl down personally, but also to instigate larger scale acts of violence. An electrifying novel, The Nigger Factory is a penetrating examination of the different forms of resistance and the motivations behind them, and a major document of an era of black thought.