Arnold Kemp

Arnold Kemp (* 1938 ) is an American author.

Life

The African American Arnold Kemp grew up in Harlem and became a supporter of Malcolm X and his Nation of Islam . He was sentenced to a long prison term for armed robbery . In November 1960, while staying at Bellevue Hospital in New York, Kemp met the author Norman Mailer , who was incarcerated there for a knife attack on his wife. Kemp and Mailer became friends and kept in touch with each other. As an inmate in Sing Sing maximum security prison , Kemp began writing his first novel. In 1967 he was released from Sing Sing. He then attended Harvard , where he earned an MA

In 1972 Kemp published his autobiographical first work under the title Eat of Me, I am the Savior . Nicholas Said, a young preacher in the Nation of Islam, separates from the organization and starts his own group, the Union of International Black Brotherhood . But Said is murdered by two men during the founding meeting. Said's deputy Yaquii truck shoots one of the assassins and lays a bomb in revenge. After seven years in prison under dire conditions, Vise is released and starts re-establishing his Black Brotherhood. At a meeting with 36 black leaders there is another assassination attempt, this time with an explosive. Vice survives and, after a religious awakening experience, turns completely to radical Islam.

“You are a victim of… of, let's see, we need a new word for it… How about: genopsycholinguisticide. Sure, why not: "first there was the word ... and the word was nigger," and you became-nigger. And that, dear nigger, dear lost, blown-up bleeding, stumbling, raggedy nigger, that is genopsycholinguisticide. Now get to that! Nigger."

"You are a victim of ... of, let's see, we need a new word for it ... How about: ethnic psycho-language murder. Sure, why not: "In the beginning was the word ... and the word was nigger," and you became - nigger. And that, dear nigger, blown up, bleeding, stumbling, ragged nigger, this is ethno-psycho language murder. Now understand that! Nigger."

- Arnold Kemp : Eat of Me, I am the Savior (1972)

The literary critic and English professor Roger Sale compared Eat of Me, I am the Savior in his book review in the New York Review of Books with the two new publications The Confession of a Child of the Century by Thomas Rogers and End Zone by Don DeLillo . All three novels are written from the perspective of the first-person narrator , in Eat of Me ... this is Yaquii Vice. One thing the three novels have in common is a new, loud type of first-person narration that resembles more the “crier at an auction” than the cautious and introspective explorer of one's own life. The magazine Ebony was the new publication worth only a short message, in which the similarity of the novel plot to the rise and fall of Malcolm X and his Nation of Islam was emphasized. The reviewer in Black World praised Kemp's writing style, but criticized the one-dimensional representation of the main character.

Publications

• The Blue of Madness . In: Orde Coombs (Ed.): "What we must see: young Black storytellers: an anthology". Dodd Mead, New York 1971, ISBN 0-396-06357-8 . (Short story)
• Eat of Me, I am the Savior . William Morrow, New York 1972. (novel)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Norman Mailer: Letters to Jack Abbott . In: "New York Review of Books", Vol. 56, No. 4, March 12, 2009.
2. ^ ^{A b} Liz Gant: Books received - Eat of Me, I am the Savior In. "Black World", Vol. 22, No. 1, Johnson Publishing, Nov. 1972, pp. 90-91.
3. ↑ Arnold kemp: Eat of Me, I am the Savior . William Morrow, New York 1972, p. 163.
4. ^ Roger Sale: I Am a Novel . In: "New York Review of Books", Vol. 18, No. 12, June 29, 1972.
5. ↑ Ebony Book Shelf . In: "Ebony", Vol. 27, No. 8 from June 1972, ISSN  0012-9011 , p. 25.