The young James Joyce of the hip-hop generation. -- Walter Mosley A kind of hip-hop Portrait of the Artist. * Guardian * A moving father-and-son story . an intense portrait of those whom the black revolution left behind, but who never broke faith with its tenets. * New York Review of Books * A beautifully written, loving portrait of a strong father bringing his sons to manhood. * Booklist * Haunting and healing . a splendid memoir. * Essence * The single best writer on the subject of race in the United States. * New York Observer * A remarkable, blunt portrait of an adolescence filled with danger, chaos, flaws, and tragedy . a love story, dispatched from the frontlines of a family. * Time Out New York * The intellectual heir to James Baldwin. * Financial Times * Told in a dreamy, lyric register redolent of a voiceover in a movie flashback, The Beautiful Struggle is both a touching portrait of filial affection and a paean to the redemptive power of culture. * Prospect * One of the most high-profile commentators on race in the United States ...Reading this book is an intoxicating experience -- Bernardine Evaristo * New Statesman * This book forces us to ask how far American society has really come, and how much further it has to go. * Financial Times *