Flesh & Spirit, Winner of the 45th Annual American Book Awards
By Katie Sweeney
10th September 2024
We are excited to announce that Flesh and Spirit: Confessions of a Young Lord by Felipe Luciano is a winner of the Forty-Fifth Annual American Book Awards given by The Before Columbus Foundation.
“Felipe Luicano’s writing is a powerful and poetic soul scream from a man who is not supposed to be here. No, not this poor smart-assed, rapid-tongued Black Puerto Rican kid hurtling through a survival gauntlet of gangs, police brutality, prison and a U.S. Government that wanted him dead. And yet, this Poet, Armed Revolutionary Leader, Composer, Musicologist, Award-winning Journalist lives on with powerful relevance in the world and on the brilliant, searing pages of Flesh and Spirit.”
Jamal Joseph, Professor of Professional Practice in Film, Columbia University; Black Panther Party New York 21
The American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. Read the full press release here.
ABOUT FLESH & SPIRIT
Growing up fatherless and poor, Felipe Luciano didn’t yearn for wealth or dream of becoming a famous actor or athlete. He was tired of being poor and ached to be a man, to reach that point of sagacity, courage, and independence that would signal to the world that he was now a warrior, ready to fight the battle for truth and justice, to slay the dragon of evil, whatever that might be. In Flesh and Spirit, Luciano paints a vivid portrait of his life in New York City as a member of the city’s Latino community as well as his pivotal role in the Young Lords and The Last Poets.
Luciano’s memoir begins when as a teenage Brooklyn gang member he is convicted of manÂslaughter. This pivotal moment changes the trajectory of his life. The American kid raised on Davy Crockett and Superman TV tales emerged from the womb of prison into a harsh, new monochromatic black/white world without the benefit of rose-colored glasses. It was a painful shattering of all his childhood beliefs and the realization that he was a poor Black Puerto Rican in white America clutching onto values that didn’t work. The only flotsam in this churning sea of ’60s social turmoil was college, poetry, revolutionary activity, and sometimes God. After getting an education, Luciano went on to become an acclaimed poet and political activist who advocates for the Latino population of New York City, for the kids growing up in the same circumstances he did.
Sparing no one—not the revolutionaries, the Revolution, nor the author himself—Flesh and Spirit is written with honesty and humility to help guide young people of color and other Americans through the labyrinths of ideology, organization, missteps, false paths, and phony societal promises.
Featuring archival photographs by Michael Abramson reproduced from Palante: Voices and Photographs of the Young Lords, 1969-1971 © 2011 Haymarket Books.
Felipe Luciano is an Emmy Award–winning journalist, news anchor, and former adjunct professor at Fordham University. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Young Lords Party, a member of The Original Last Poets, an advocate for inter-ethnic communication, and the host of “Latin Roots,” a Latino music program in New York City. A talented diversity speaker, Luciano is committed to community empowerment, ethnic pride, and civil rights. He is a regular contributor to many New York–area newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times and Essence. His poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Puerto Rican Poetry: An Anthology from Aboriginal to Contemporary Time.