New York, NY —
The ninth edition of the Harlem Book Fair takes place today. Up to 70,000 visitors are expected on 135th Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, along with 300 exhibitors from the spectrum of African-American publishing. WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter checked in on the uptown book scene.
CUSTOMER: …An old pamphlet from the end of the 19th century, The Cushite, by Rufus Perry, just some very hard-to-find stuff…
THOMETZ: He’s buying Richard B. Moore, “The Name Negro: Its Origins and Evil Use.” Richard B Moore was the proprietor of the Frederick Douglass Bookstore, which is where W.E.B. Du Bois bought his books…
REPORTER: Kurt Thometz runs Jumel Terrace Books, in a brownstone on Sugar Hill. He’s a white guy from Minnesota but he’s become a historian of Harlem cultural life.
THOMETZ: …This is where Malcolm spoke; Garveyites, Nation of Islam, Communists, polygamists, alcoholics, everybody spoke there, it was wonderful.
REPORTER: Today the Harlem street scene is a little less radical. But Max Rodriguez, who founded the Harlem Book Fair nine years ago and runs it from the back of Thometz’s bookstore, says that books are playing a big part in Harlem’s commercial revival.
RODRIGUEZ: …You can walk on 125th Street and every other outdoor vendor will be a book vendor.
VENDOR AND CUSTOMER: How much is this? Ten dollars. Ten? I’ll be back. OK baby, thank you…
REPORTER: This is the world of urban books – also known as street lit. Hundreds of Black pulp fiction books appear each month with names like “True to the Game,” “Every Thug Needs A Lady,” or “G-Spot.” Henry Ndombo is one of the many book vendors on 125th Street.
NDOMBO: “God Created Woman”, that’s fiction about four ladies from different backgrounds, I can say that’s the number one right now.
NDOMBO AND CUSTOMER: You get “Dutch 3”? It’s not out yet. What about the last Nikki Turner? No, I sold out. “Still Wifey”?…
REPORTER: Street lit may be low-brow, but it’s had a huge impact on the Black book business.
GRAY: I got so many favorite authors, it’s ridiculous. I want to meet Teri Woods, Zane… I own like 600 books.
REPORTER: And book buyers like Sharon Gray are getting the attention of the big Midtown publishing companies.
JOHNSON: The guys and girls selling that literature is actually driving what major publishing houses are selling.
REPORTER: From his home on 119th Street, Troy Johnson runs the African American Literary Book Club, a national website for Black bibliophiles.
JOHNSON: Virtually any one of them that’s sold a few thousand copies seems to be able to pick up a deal from a major house.
REPORTER: One of these writers is Relentless Aaron. You can’t miss his promotional van parked on 125th Street. He often sells his books out in front of Starbucks.
AARON: Push, and To Live and Die in Harlem. Those are like my 20th and 21st novels out of the 32 that I’ve written.
AARON: [Reads] “Word got around about the shooting and the events at the Lenox Lounge. 20 of its customers had been locked up for one reason or another…”
REPORTER: Aaron wrote many of his novels while serving time in federal prison. He’s only been out three years, but he has a multi-book deal with St. Martin’s Press and another with the hip-hop star 50 Cent. His stories are frequently set in Harlem.
AARON: “‘Gurrrl… did you hear about that dude, Raphael? Yeah, the one with the ponytail… right, the red-boned one…’”
REPORTER: Not all street lit is suitable for broadcast. Erotica and pornography are popular among the largely female readership. But some readers, like Eleanor Blake, object.
BLAKE: I don’t like those books, what I call bootycall books. It gives a bad image of Black women, it’s really negative, I think a lot of those books should be banned.
REPORTER: But book professionals aren’t so harsh in their judgment. Janifer Wilson runs a bookstore called Sisters Uptown at 156th and Amsterdam.
WILSON: I don’t have a problem with what people are reading because basically to me as long as folk are reading, that’s key. … A lot of these young girls will say, I read that book in a day. They will stay up all night and finish that book.
REPORTER: Marie Brown, a longtime Harlem literary agent, has a different concern. She sees the publishing industry rushing into street lit and she fears it stereotypes Black readers and closes the door to more literary authors.
BROWN: I don’t see those writers being celebrated to the extent that they were previously. When you look at the books that are being published I don’t think that they are going to be considered for Nobels or Pulitzers.
REPORTER: But these distinctions are set aside today. Max Rodriguez says the Book Fair presents the full spectrum of Black literature, and that Harlem is the perfect place to do that.
RODRIGUEZ: There’s a real romanticism about Harlem… Harlem is the concrete jungle, it’s the street, it’s where drugs and love and lust and passion and gunplay and failure and success all live.
REPORTER: And that’s why Harlem is more than a setting – it’s a character in its own right in the African American story. For WNYC, I’m Siddhartha Mitter.