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Represented by:

Carnicelli Literary Management
info@carnicellilit.com


Justin Gifford is an Associate Professor, Emeritus of English Language and Literature, a nationally-recognized biographer, and an expert witness and consultant on street literature.

He is the critically-acclaimed author of three books, including the definitive biographies of Iceberg Slim and Eldridge Cleaver. He is the author of the first book-length study of street literature, Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing (2013), a finalist for Phi Beta Kappa’s Christian Gauss Award and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for a Critical/Biographical Work. His book Street Poison was chosen as one of Amazon.com’s top 100 books of the year, and his book Revolution or Death earned him a Leon Levy Biography Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. 

His forthcoming book, Time Considered as a Helix: The Life of Samuel R. Delany, was the winner of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. It draws from hundreds of hours of personal interviews with Mr. Delany, as well as his archive of letters, journals, and unpublished manuscripts at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Museum to provide the first biography of one of the most significant and influential popular American writers of the 20th century.

He has served as an expert witness and consultant on street literature and hip-hop music in both state and federal court cases, testifying on rap lyrics and street slang.