Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member

by Sanyika Shakur

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Written in solitary confinement, Kody Scott's memoir of sixteen years as a gangbanger in Los Angeles was a searing best-seller and became a classic, published in ten languages, with more than 300,000 copies in print in the United States alone. After pumping eight blasts from a sawed-off shotgun at a group of rival gang members, twelve-year-old Kody Scott was initiated into the L.A. gang the Crips. He quickly matured into one of the most formidable Crip combat soldiers, earning the name -Monster- for committing acts of brutality and violence that repulsed even his fellow gang members. When the inevitable jail term confined him to a maximum-security cell, a complete political and personal transformation followed: from Monster to Sanyika Shakur, black nationalist, member of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, and crusader against the causes of gangsterism. In a document that has been compared to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, Shakur makes palpable the despair and decay of America's inner cities and gives eloquent voice to one aspect of the black ghetto experience today.
  • ISBN10 0802141447
  • ISBN13 9780802141446
  • Publish Date 29 June 2004 (first published 22 July 1994)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
  • Format Paperback (US Trade)
  • Pages 400
  • Language English