Manchild in the Promised Land (Scribner Classics)

Now a Scribner Classic, this landmark publication and 1965 bestseller chronicles the author’s harrowing childhood of violent crime and poverty in Harlem—and has been widely celebrated as a classic of American literature by the lions of the literary world, including Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer.

One of the most remarkable autobiographies of our time, Manchild in the Promised Land is the thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown’s childhood as a hardened, streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem. It has been heralded as the definitive account of everyday life for the first generation of African Americans raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s. When first published in 1965, it was praised for its realistic portrayal of Harlem—the children, young people, hardworking parents; the hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and numbers runners; the police; the violence, sex, and humor.

The book continues to resonate generations later, not only because of its fierce and dignified anger, not only because the struggles of urban youth are as deeply felt today as they were in Brown’s time, but also because the book is affirmative and inspiring and still rings true today.

Manchild in the Promised Land is a seminal work of modern literature published during a literary era marked by the ascendance of black writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Alex Haley. This thinly fictionalized account of Claude Browns childhood as a streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem has been heralded as the definitive chronicle of everyday life for the first generation of African-Americans raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s.

When it was first published in 1965, Manchild in the Promised Land was praised for its realistic portrayal of Harlem—the children, young people, hardworking parents; the hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and numbers runners; the police; the violence, sex, and humor. The New York Times Book Review declared that it was “written with brutal and unvarnished honesty in the plain talk of the people, in language that is fierce, uproarious, obscene and tender.” The book continues to resonate generations later, not only because the struggles of urban youth are as deeply felt today as they were in Browns time but also because of its inspiring message. Here is the story about the boy who “made it.”

Claude Brown was born in New York City and grew up in Harlem. At age seventeen, after serving several terms in reform school, he left Harlem for Greenwich Village. He went on to receive a bachelor's degree from Howard University and attended law school. He also wrote a book called The Children of Ham in 1976. Manchild in the Promised Land evolved from an article he published in Dissent magazine during his first year at college. He died in 2002 at the age of 64. Nathan McCall, author of Makes Me Wanna Holler, has worked as a journalist for The Washington Post. Currently, he teaches in the African American Studies Department at Emory University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.