Urban fiction is a literary genre set, as the name implies, in a city landscape; however, the genre is as much defined by the race and culture of its characters as the urban setting. The tone for urban fiction is usually dark, focusing on the underside of city life, and the characters tend to be African-American or Latino. A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or subject matter (content). ... An urban area is a term used to define an area where there is an increased density of human-created structures in comparison to the areas surrounding it. ... An African American (also Afro-American or Black American, or black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... // Etymology The Italian word Latino (see Latino in Wikipedias Italian encyclopedia section) and its feminine form Latina derive from Latin (the adjectives latinus, latina), originally referring to Latium, the area of Rome, by aitiology derived from a king of the name Latinus. ...

Characteristics of Urban Fiction

As a rule, urban fiction portrays African-American protagonists (often anti-heroes) coming of age and trying to survive in a hostile environment riven with violence, poverty, and racism. Profanity (all of George Carlin's seven dirty words and urban variations thereof), sex and violence are usually explicit, with the writer not shying away from or watering-down the material. In this respect, urban fiction shares some common threads with dystopian or survivalist fiction. Often statements derogatory to white people (or at least what is perceived as the dominant white culture and power structure) are made, usually by the characters. However, in the second wave of urban fiction, some variations of this model have been seen. In literature and film, an anti-hero is a central or supporting character that has some of the personality flaws and ultimate fortune traditionally assigned to villains but nonetheless also have enough heroic qualities or intentions to gain the sympathy of readers or viewers. ... George Dennis Carlin (born May 12, 1937) is a Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, and author, noted especially for his irreverent attitude and his observations on language, psychology and religion along with many taboo subjects. ... The seven dirty words are seven English words comedian George Carlin listed in his monologue Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television, released in 1972 on his album Class Clown. ... A dystopia (or alternatively cacotopia) is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror. ... A survivalist is a person who anticipates a potential disruption in the continuity of local, regional or worldwide society, and takes steps to survive in the resulting unpredictable situation. ... White is a color, (more accurately it contains all the colors of the visible spectrum and is sometimes described as an achromatic color—black is the absence of color) that has high brightness but zero hue. ...

Genesis and Historical Forces Behind Urban Fiction

Urban fiction was (and largely still is) a genre written by and for African-Americans. In his famous essay, The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Dubois talked about how a "veil" separated the African-American community from the outside world. [1] By extension, fiction written by people outside the African-American culture could not (at least with any degree of verisimilitude) depict the people, settings, and events experienced by people in that culture. Try as some might, those who grew up "outside the veil" (i.e., outside the urban culture) simply could not write fiction truly grounded in inner-city and African-American life. The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... This article contains weasel words, which may compromise its neutrality. ... W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an African American civil rights activist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, freemason, and scholar. ...

The First Generation of Urban Fiction

In the 1970s, during the culmination of the Black Power movement, a jailed black man named Robert Beck took the pen name Iceberg Slim and wrote Pimp, a dark, gritty tale of life in the inner-city underworld. While the book contained elements of the Black Power agenda, it was most notable for its unsparing depiction of street life. Iceberg Slim wrote many other novels, and attained an international following. Some of the terminology he used in his books crossed over into the lexicon of Black English. [2]. Other writers included Donald Goines [3], and notably, Claude Brown's Manchild In The Promised Land published in 1965. Also published in 1965 was Malcolm X's autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Because this non-fictional read captures the realistic nature of African-American urban life for coming of age young men, the book has consistently served as a standard for reading amongst African-American teen-aged boys. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Iceberg Slim is the pen name of Robert Beck (August 4, 1918 – April 28, 1992), a successful African American writer who started out as a pimp. ... African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called Ebonics, Black English, or Black English Vernacular (BEV) is a dialect of American English. ...

Rap Music as an Urban Ballad

During the 1980s and early 1990s, urban fiction in print experienced a decline. However, one could make a cogent argument that urban tales simply moved from print to music[4], as rap music exploded in popularity, with harsh, gritty stories such as The Message and Dopeman set to a driving, strident bass rhythm. Of course, for every rapper who signed a recording contract and made the airwaves, ten more amateurs plied the streets and local clubs, much like urban bards or troubadors telling urban fiction in an informal, oral manner rather than in a neat, written form. One of the most famous rappers, Tupac Shakur, is sometimes called a "ghetto prophet," and is undeniably an author of urban fiction in lyrical form. The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ... The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive. ... Hip hop music is a style of popular music. ... Bass (IPA: [], rhyming with face), when used as an adjective, describes tones of low frequency. ... A bard is a poet and singer, with the particular meaning differing for various countries and epochs. ... For the article about the night club in West Hollywood, California, see: Troubadour (nightclub). ... Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971–September 13, 1996) was an American hip hop artist, poet and actor. ...

The New Wave of Urban Fiction

Toward the end of the 1990s, urban fiction experienced a revival, as demand for novels authentically conveying the urban experience increased, and new business models enabled fledgling writers to more easily bring a manuscript to market. One of the first writers in this new cycle of urban fiction was the controversial Sister Souljah, who wrote Coldest Winter Ever. (1999) For good or ill, her books gained publicity based on comments she made during an interview that some interpreted as advocating the killing of white people. Teri Woods' True to the Game and Omar Tyree's Flyy Girl, were also published in 1999. Along with Souljah's Coldest Winter, the three novels are considered classics in this renaissance genre. A business model (also called a business design) is the mechanism by which a business intends to generate revenue and profits. ... Sister Souljah, born 1964 as Lisa Williamson in the Bronx, New York, is a controversial American hip-hop generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer. ...

Other writers of urban fiction include Vikki Stringer, Shannon Holmes, Solomon Jones, Nikki Turner, and Pamela M. Johnson, the latter of whom is becoming known in urban fiction circles for bootstrapping a single novel sold from the trunk of her car into a publishing company and press. Bootstrapping alludes to a German legend about Baron Münchhausen, who was able to lift himself out of a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair. ...

In less than a decade, urban fiction has experienced a renaissance that boasts hundreds of titles. Some publishers include Triple Crown Publications [5], Kensington Books [6], and Dafina Books, an imprint of Kensington.