On A Move

Terry Bisson, Robert Reed, Bruce Mc Callister

ISBN 10: 0874869013 / ISBN 13: 9780874869019

Published by Litmus Books, 2001

About this Item

215 pags. No marks or writing in the book. Corners are square. No reading creases on the spine. Spine is tight and there are no loose pages. Black and white photographs. Cover colors are bright. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # 014339

Bibliographic Details

• Title: On A Move
• Publisher: Litmus Books
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874869013
• ISBN 13: 9780874869019
• Binding: Soft Cover
• Condition: Very Good +
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

Looks at the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was implicated in the slaying of a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981.

About the Author

Terry Bisson is the author of numerous science fiction novels, short stories, motion picture novelizations, and a biography of Nat Turner for young adults. A winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, as well as France’s Gran Prix de l’Imaginaire, Bisson has written for The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Nation. Recent nonfiction projects include Hauling up the Morning (an anthology of writing by political prisoners), and Sleeping Where I Fall (the memoirs of activist film star Peter Coyote), both of which he edited. Washington Post Book World
“Bisson’s work is a fresh, imaginative attempt to confront some of the problems of our time...”

San Diego Union-Tribune
“Bisson’s quick jabs to the funny bone and the intellect are more powerful than many a lesser artist’s attempt at a knockout punch…and bespeak a remarkable creativity.”

Why write about Mumia?
“These brief impressionistic sketches were designed to give the contours and flavor of a life that Mumia insists is not exceptional at all, but representative of the lives of many of the youth of his generation, and particularly black youth, who were informed and set into motion by the welcome upheavals of history. It’s a good story and one he’s rightfully proud of. I’m pleased to have been given a stab at telling it.” (from the Afterword)

Why not an autobiography?
“It’s generally either hubris or foolishness when one writer writes another writer’s life. My only excuse is that I was asked. Mumia is too busy writing about others to bother with himself.” (from the Afterword)

But why a science fiction writer?
“The job of a sci-fi writer is to make strange worlds familiar, and what could be stranger today than the sixties, when white supremacy and corporate hegemony seemed not only threatened but actually on the run in Vietnam, Latin America, Africa? How could I describe to today’s youth what it felt like to know that the Revolution was just around the corner? That the world was changing every day for the better? ‘If you can do Mars, you can do the sixties,’ Mumia told me with a hopeful, slightly wistful, homesick grin.” (from the Afterword)