Gil Scott-Heron





Gil Scott-Heron

Author profile


born
in Chicago, Illinois, The United States
April 01, 1949

died
May 27, 2011

gender
male

website

genre


About this author

Gilbert Scott Heron was born in 1949. His mother was a librarian and his father a soccer player from Jamaica. In his youth Heron displayed both sporting prowess and academic ability (he won a place at Pennsylvania Lincoln University, like his role model Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance man). But he quit college after the first year to write his first novel, The Vulture (1970). While Heron was writing this the ferment of black politics and student radicalism was coming to a head, and his second novel The Nigger Factory (1972) reflects these developments.
Heron has been more adventurous in his work as a musician and rapper.


Average rating: 3.90 · 476 ratings · 82 reviews · 9 distinct works · Similar authors
The Last Holiday
3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 avg rating — 202 ratings — published 2012 — 6 editions
The Vulture
3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 avg rating — 113 ratings — published 1970 — 9 editions
Now and Then...
4.42 of 5 stars 4.42 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions
The Nigger Factory
3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 1996 — 5 editions
The Vulture & The Nigger Fa...
3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 1999 — 3 editions
So Far, So Good
4.27 of 5 stars 4.27 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1990
Small Talk at 125th and Lenox
3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1970
Two of a Kind
3.0 of 5 stars 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating
Black Light: The African Am...
by
4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1993 — 2 editions
More books by Gil Scott-Heron…
“Because I always feel like running
Not away, because there is no such place
Because if there was, I would have found it by now
Because it's easier to run,
Easier than staying and finding out you're the only one who didn't run
Because running will be the way your life and mine will be described,
As in "the long run"
Or as in having "given someone a run for his money"
Or as in "running out of time"
Because running makes me look like everyone else, though I hope there will never be cause for that
Because I will be running in the other direction, not running for cover
Because if I knew where cover was, I would stay there and never have to run for it
Not running for my life, because I have to be running for something of more value to be running and not in fear
Because the thing I fear cannot be escaped, eluded, avoided, hidden from, protected from, gotten away from,
Not without showing the fear as I see it now
Because closer, clearer, no sir, nearer
Because of you and because of that nice
That you quietly, quickly be causing
And because you're going to see me run soon and because you're going to know why I'm running then
You'll know then
Because I'm not going to tell you now”
Gil Scott-Heron, Now and Then...

“All the dreams you show up in are not your own.”
Gil Scott-Heron

“Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.”
Gil Scott-Heron

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