Author | Saeed Jones |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Memoir |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | October 8, 2019 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback), audiobook, e-book |
Pages | 208 (hardcover) |
ISBN | 978-1501132735 |
How We Fight for Our Lives is a coming-of-age memoir written by American author Saeed Jones and published by Simon & Schuster in 2019. The story follows Jones as a young, Black, gay man in 1990s Lewisville, Texas as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears.
How We Fight for Our Lives has earned widespread critical acclaim. [1] [2] It received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly , [3] Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews . [4] [5] [6] NPR called the book an "Extremely personal, emotionally gritty, and unabashedly honest...outstanding memoir." [7] The Los Angeles Review of Books noted that "Jones displays a poet’s knack for the searing detail, and the pages of his memoir are full of beautiful and surprising images that buoy us through the pain and heartache and often seething rage that fuel its propulsive, precise narration." [8]
In 2019 the book won the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction; [6] in 2020 it won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography, [9] the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award and the Randy Shilts Award for gay nonfiction. [1] [10] It was listed in Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2019 in the Best Memoirs section and on Time's list of must-read books of 2019. [11] [12]
Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work My Alexandria. He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.
Kim Powers is an American writer. His memoir The History of Swimming: A Memoir was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Biography, and his television writing has brought him two Emmies, a Peabody Award, and three Edward R. Murrow Awards. In 2007, Out named him one of their "Out 100," a list of the "top 100 most influential gays or lesbians in the country."
Red Hen Press is an American non-profit press located in Pasadena, California, and specializing in the publication of poetry, literary fiction, and nonfiction. The press is a member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, and was a finalist for the 2013 AWP Small Press Publisher Award. The press has been featured in Publishers Weekly,Kirkus Reviews, and Independent Publisher.
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an American author and activist. She is the author of two memoirs and three novels, and the editor of six nonfiction anthologies.
Melissa Febos is an American writer and professor. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Whip Smart (2010) and the essay collections Abandon Me (2017) and Girlhood (2021).
Jeanne Córdova was an American writer and supporter of the lesbian and gay rights movement, founder of The Lesbian Tide, and a founder of the West Coast LGBT movement. A former Catholic nun, Córdova was a second-wave feminist lesbian activist and self-described butch.
Saeed Jones is an American writer and poet. His debut collection Prelude to Bruise was named a 2014 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His second book, a memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives won the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction in 2019.
Hanif Abdurraqib is an American poet, essayist, and cultural critic. His first essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was published in 2017. His 2021 essay collection A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance received the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Abdurraqib received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.
Amy Butcher is an American writer and essayist. Her memoir, Mothertrucker, was published from Amazon Publishing literary press Little A Books in 2022. Her first book, Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder, was published in 2015. In August 2019, Makeready Films announced a film adaptation of Mothertrucker will be produced and directed by Jill Soloway and will star Julianne Moore. In February 2020, the Ohio State Arts Council awarded excerpts of Mothertrucker an Individual Excellence Award. In February 2024, the Ohio State Arts Council awarded excerpts of her new book an Individual Excellence Award.
Dwight "D." or "Doc" Watkins is an author, HBO writer, and professor at The University of Baltimore.
Heavy: An American Memoir is a memoir by Kiese Laymon, published October 16, 2018 by Scribner. In 2019, the book won the Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other awards and nominations.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is the debut novel by Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong, published by Penguin Press on June 4, 2019. An epistolary novel, it is written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son to his illiterate mother. It was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction.
In the Dream House is a memoir by Carmen Maria Machado. It was published on November 5, 2019, by Graywolf Press.
The Yellow House is a memoir by Sarah M. Broom. It is Broom's first book and it was published on August 13, 2019, by Grove Press. The Yellow House chronicles Broom's family, her life growing up in New Orleans East, and the eventual demise of her beloved childhood home after Hurricane Katrina. Broom also focuses on the aftermath of Katrina and how the disaster altered her family and her neighborhood. At its core, the book examines race, class, politics, family, trauma, and inequality in New Orleans and America. The Yellow House won the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Morgan Jerkins is an American writer and editor. Her debut book, This Will Be My Undoing (2018), a collection of nonfiction essays, was a New York Times bestseller. Her second book, Wandering in Strange Lands, her memoir, was released in August 2020. She is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993 is a 2021 oral history written by former ACT UP activist Sarah Schulman. Using 188 interviews conducted as part of the ACT UP Oral History Project, Schulman shows how the activist group was successful, due to its decentralized, dramatic actions, and emphasizes the contributions of people of color and women to the movement.
A History of My Brief Body is an autobiographical series of essays by Billy-Ray Belcourt, published July 14, 2020, by Penguin Canada.
Punch Me Up to the Gods is a memoir, written by Brian Broome and published May 18, 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The book won the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction (2021), as well as the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir or Biography (2022).
The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia is a non-fiction book by Emma Copley Eisenberg, published January 21, 2020 by Hachette Books. The book follows the investigation of the murders of Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero and provides commentary on how people in Appalachia are viewed.
The Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, that awards LGBT-themed nonfiction books whose intended audience is "general readers, as opposed to those targeted primarily to scholarly audiences." Anthologies and memoirs are not included as they have their own categories.