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This Life
This Life is the debut novel by Quntos KunQuest, a longtime inmate at Angola, the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary. This marks the appearance of a bold, distinctive new voice, one deeply inflected by hiphop, that delves into the meaning of a life spent behind bars, the human bonds formed therein, and the poetry that even those in the most dire places can create.
Lil Chris is just nineteen when he arrives at Angola as an AU--an admitting unit, a fresh fish, a new vict. He's got a life sentence with no chance of parole, but he's also got a clear mind and sharp awareness--one that picks up quickly on the details of the system, his fellow inmates, and what he can do to claim a place at the top. When he meets Rise, another inmate with a life sentence, Lil Chris finds his way up in a system bent on repressing every means he has to express himself.
Lil Chris channels his questions, frustrations, and pain into rap, and This Life Matters flows with the same cadence as Lil Chris's verses. It pulses with the heat of impassioned inmates, the oppressive daily routines of the prison yard, and the rap contests that bring the men of the prison together.
This Life is told in a voice that only a man who's lived it could have--a clipped, urgent, evocative voice that's pulses with anger, honesty, playfulness, and a deep sense of ugly history. Angola started out as a plantation--and as This Life makes clear, black inmates are still in a kind of enslavement there. This Life is an important debut that commands our attention.
Lil Chris is just nineteen when he arrives at Angola as an AU--an admitting unit, a fresh fish, a new vict. He's got a life sentence with no chance of parole, but he's also got a clear mind and sharp awareness--one that picks up quickly on the details of the system, his fellow inmates, and what he can do to claim a place at the top. When he meets Rise, another inmate with a life sentence, Lil Chris finds his way up in a system bent on repressing every means he has to express himself.
Lil Chris channels his questions, frustrations, and pain into rap, and This Life Matters flows with the same cadence as Lil Chris's verses. It pulses with the heat of impassioned inmates, the oppressive daily routines of the prison yard, and the rap contests that bring the men of the prison together.
This Life is told in a voice that only a man who's lived it could have--a clipped, urgent, evocative voice that's pulses with anger, honesty, playfulness, and a deep sense of ugly history. Angola started out as a plantation--and as This Life makes clear, black inmates are still in a kind of enslavement there. This Life is an important debut that commands our attention.
250 pages, Paperback
Published June 8, 2021
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June 10, 2021
This Life is a fascinating novel for several reasons, starting with its publishing history. In the book’s Foreword, Zachary Lazar writes that he first met Quntos KunQuest in 2013 at Louisiana’s notorious Angola Prison.
Lazar, a professor of English at Tulane University, had come to the prison as a journalist to cover the production of a play the inmates were performing. Quntos was part of the sound crew and wrote some of the play’s music. “He was a rapper, he said, but Angola disapproved of hip-hop, unlike country, gospel, and rock, so he had to find ways to work that didn’t draw much notice.”
Lazar mentioned to Quntos that he was trying to write a novel “about a man serving life at Angola.” Quntos, 20 years into his life sentence, said he’d written a novel like that himself. He said “he would send it to me and I could ‘steal’ from it anything I wanted.” Lazar wasn’t interested in stealing but was interested in read the manuscript—which was 348 pages hand printed in ballpoint pen with cursive for italics. It took at least one false start before the novel found a publisher in Agate.
This Life is a highbred: memoir, poetry, fiction, all written in an English that may take some getting used to. Here on page 1 is Lil Chris considering the correctional officers who are taking him to Angola: “If anything unusual happened, they wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot. That triptriggered sump’n he wa’n’t tryna think about, but he knew: this was his slow descent to the bottom of the barrel.”
The other major character is Rise who’s been inside for a while. Looking at the new arrivals, “within 30 minutes he’ll have assessed every one of them’s makeup. He’ll know who’s dangerous and who’s soft, who’s got sense and who can’t think, who’s playin’ games and who wants to be left alone. And, most importantly, which of these fools he’s willing to allow inside his zone.”
Lil Chris and Rise are both natural born rappers and This Life is studded with, and enriched by, rap poetry. At the climax of the story, they compete in a rap contest.
This could have been a simple memoir of what it’s like to be serving an extended sentence in Angola, which has provoked a number of books, notably Wilbert Rideau’s In the Place of Justice and Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking. Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, is the largest maximum-security prison in the U.S. Covering 18,000 square acres, Angola is larger than Manhattan.
It currently houses about 6,000 prisoners.
In a facility so large with working farms, manufacturing facilities, education center, an inmate-run radio station, TV station, and magazine, one individual prisoner’s daily life inside can be very different from another. Violence exists, but prison tends to be more peaceful than movies and television would have you believe. We watch Lil Chris being institutionalized before he is fit to live relatively peacefully in a dormitory with a job in the library rather than in a two-man cell or in the SHU—the segregated housing unit, what modern prisons call solitary.
In the course of This Life, we watch Lil Chris change from an angry young man into a rap artist who (we can hope) has a future within and perhaps beyond prison. He is guided in this change by Rise who has his own demons and history to live with, but who also has learned exactly how the system works. As one of the old ’victs tells Lil Chris:
“The prison system is a racket. When we go out and commit criminal acts and get caught, we fall into a well-planned net. A trap. From that point forward, it’s we, the offenders, who are usually victimized. They already know that a large percentage of us don’t know the law—let alone our rights. This problem is compounded by the fact that most of us can’t afford competent legal assistance. We’re given a court-appointed lawyer who not only doesn’t have adequate resources, but also can’t properly defend us even if they did have the resources. They’re being called to defend too many clients at one time.”
So not only is This Life an interesting story, a persuasive picture of prison life, a chapbook of rap poetry, it also offers a thought-provoking perspective on the criminal-justice complex. It reads so well, so persuasively one wonders what, if anything, a copy-editor did with the manuscript. Would you touch an exchange like this between Lil Chris and a female CO:
—“How you doin’ Sarge?”
—“Fine. What’s up with you?” she returns.
—I’m straight.” A little too emphatic. Damn! “I mean, I’m cool. Just another day in the joint.” He recovers. “So you chllin’ wit’ us tonight”
—"Yeah,” she smiles. “I’ll be here with you, tonight.”
—Did she just give him a little under-eyed glance? Boy, that’s cold. I know she just didn’t do me that, Lil Chris thinks.
This Life deserves to be read, to be read widely, to be read aloud, to be savored, and to be thought about.
Lazar, a professor of English at Tulane University, had come to the prison as a journalist to cover the production of a play the inmates were performing. Quntos was part of the sound crew and wrote some of the play’s music. “He was a rapper, he said, but Angola disapproved of hip-hop, unlike country, gospel, and rock, so he had to find ways to work that didn’t draw much notice.”
Lazar mentioned to Quntos that he was trying to write a novel “about a man serving life at Angola.” Quntos, 20 years into his life sentence, said he’d written a novel like that himself. He said “he would send it to me and I could ‘steal’ from it anything I wanted.” Lazar wasn’t interested in stealing but was interested in read the manuscript—which was 348 pages hand printed in ballpoint pen with cursive for italics. It took at least one false start before the novel found a publisher in Agate.
This Life is a highbred: memoir, poetry, fiction, all written in an English that may take some getting used to. Here on page 1 is Lil Chris considering the correctional officers who are taking him to Angola: “If anything unusual happened, they wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot. That triptriggered sump’n he wa’n’t tryna think about, but he knew: this was his slow descent to the bottom of the barrel.”
The other major character is Rise who’s been inside for a while. Looking at the new arrivals, “within 30 minutes he’ll have assessed every one of them’s makeup. He’ll know who’s dangerous and who’s soft, who’s got sense and who can’t think, who’s playin’ games and who wants to be left alone. And, most importantly, which of these fools he’s willing to allow inside his zone.”
Lil Chris and Rise are both natural born rappers and This Life is studded with, and enriched by, rap poetry. At the climax of the story, they compete in a rap contest.
This could have been a simple memoir of what it’s like to be serving an extended sentence in Angola, which has provoked a number of books, notably Wilbert Rideau’s In the Place of Justice and Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking. Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, is the largest maximum-security prison in the U.S. Covering 18,000 square acres, Angola is larger than Manhattan.
It currently houses about 6,000 prisoners.
In a facility so large with working farms, manufacturing facilities, education center, an inmate-run radio station, TV station, and magazine, one individual prisoner’s daily life inside can be very different from another. Violence exists, but prison tends to be more peaceful than movies and television would have you believe. We watch Lil Chris being institutionalized before he is fit to live relatively peacefully in a dormitory with a job in the library rather than in a two-man cell or in the SHU—the segregated housing unit, what modern prisons call solitary.
In the course of This Life, we watch Lil Chris change from an angry young man into a rap artist who (we can hope) has a future within and perhaps beyond prison. He is guided in this change by Rise who has his own demons and history to live with, but who also has learned exactly how the system works. As one of the old ’victs tells Lil Chris:
“The prison system is a racket. When we go out and commit criminal acts and get caught, we fall into a well-planned net. A trap. From that point forward, it’s we, the offenders, who are usually victimized. They already know that a large percentage of us don’t know the law—let alone our rights. This problem is compounded by the fact that most of us can’t afford competent legal assistance. We’re given a court-appointed lawyer who not only doesn’t have adequate resources, but also can’t properly defend us even if they did have the resources. They’re being called to defend too many clients at one time.”
So not only is This Life an interesting story, a persuasive picture of prison life, a chapbook of rap poetry, it also offers a thought-provoking perspective on the criminal-justice complex. It reads so well, so persuasively one wonders what, if anything, a copy-editor did with the manuscript. Would you touch an exchange like this between Lil Chris and a female CO:
—“How you doin’ Sarge?”
—“Fine. What’s up with you?” she returns.
—I’m straight.” A little too emphatic. Damn! “I mean, I’m cool. Just another day in the joint.” He recovers. “So you chllin’ wit’ us tonight”
—"Yeah,” she smiles. “I’ll be here with you, tonight.”
—Did she just give him a little under-eyed glance? Boy, that’s cold. I know she just didn’t do me that, Lil Chris thinks.
This Life deserves to be read, to be read widely, to be read aloud, to be savored, and to be thought about.
September 8, 2021
Full review at https://www.everydayiwritethebookblog...
Amidst the hubbub this week around big new September releases, I finished a book that’s unlikely to attract nearly as much attention, but should. It’s called This Life by Quntos KunQuest, and it’s a debut novel from an author who is currently incarcerated at Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana. This Life follows a newly imprisoned man named Lil’ Chris as he ages through the system. KunQuest, a poet and a rapper himself, intersperses verse throughout the book, providing a creative outlet for Lil’ Chris and a poignant vehicle for his fear and frustration as well as his growth as a man.
This Life revolves around two men serving life sentences: Lil’ Chris and Rise. Lil’ Chris is new to prison when the book opens, filled with nervous energy and fury. Early on, he catches the eye of Rise, an older man who has been in prison for a long time. Rise identifies inmates whom he believes have the potential to learn, to grow – and maybe to engineer their own release. Rise teaches other people at Angola, sharing literature and instructing them on how to use the law library to research and prepare their appeals. Through these two men, KunQuest takes his readers into the complex world of Angola, which houses over 6,000 prisoners and almost 2,000 staff. We learn about the routines, the jobs, the security, the conflicts and the punishments that occur every day at this massive ecosystem.
Rise and Lil’ Chris find common ground in rapping, and the book is full of verses that they have created and shared with their fellow inmates. Rapping helps these men process and find deeper meaning in what they are experiencing.
After reading This Life (and most prison literature), I was left feeling hopeless about the prison system and how it traps its inmates into further cycles of violence and desperation rather than focusing on education and rehabilitation. This Life is even more poignant because its author, imprisoned since 1996, has so clearly poured his own artistic energy and vision into these two characters. But it’s an important, and rarely heard, perspective that deserves to be shared and understood.
Amidst the hubbub this week around big new September releases, I finished a book that’s unlikely to attract nearly as much attention, but should. It’s called This Life by Quntos KunQuest, and it’s a debut novel from an author who is currently incarcerated at Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana. This Life follows a newly imprisoned man named Lil’ Chris as he ages through the system. KunQuest, a poet and a rapper himself, intersperses verse throughout the book, providing a creative outlet for Lil’ Chris and a poignant vehicle for his fear and frustration as well as his growth as a man.
This Life revolves around two men serving life sentences: Lil’ Chris and Rise. Lil’ Chris is new to prison when the book opens, filled with nervous energy and fury. Early on, he catches the eye of Rise, an older man who has been in prison for a long time. Rise identifies inmates whom he believes have the potential to learn, to grow – and maybe to engineer their own release. Rise teaches other people at Angola, sharing literature and instructing them on how to use the law library to research and prepare their appeals. Through these two men, KunQuest takes his readers into the complex world of Angola, which houses over 6,000 prisoners and almost 2,000 staff. We learn about the routines, the jobs, the security, the conflicts and the punishments that occur every day at this massive ecosystem.
Rise and Lil’ Chris find common ground in rapping, and the book is full of verses that they have created and shared with their fellow inmates. Rapping helps these men process and find deeper meaning in what they are experiencing.
After reading This Life (and most prison literature), I was left feeling hopeless about the prison system and how it traps its inmates into further cycles of violence and desperation rather than focusing on education and rehabilitation. This Life is even more poignant because its author, imprisoned since 1996, has so clearly poured his own artistic energy and vision into these two characters. But it’s an important, and rarely heard, perspective that deserves to be shared and understood.
February 17, 2022
I cannot easily put into words the beauty of this book. It is, at all times, lyrical. The rap is poetry, as rap has always been, but even a casual conversation between prisoners has a cadence and beauty that you can become completely immersed within. When KunQuest switches into a political or legal lecture, the rhythm and beauty remains, but one is stunned by the completeness of the switch, the entirely new persona and narrative voice he chooses to employ. He writes interiority brilliantly, allowing us to slip from conversation to internal musings effortlessly. He does a wonderful job with selective omniscience, as well, leaping from one point of view to another in the midst of dialogue or a quick transition between scenes and it is almost never disruptive— because he allows cadence and rhythm to drive content in so many ways. He’s a poet writing fiction, although perhaps some readers with very narrow ideas about poetry won’t recognize that. This is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read, and I hope incarceration doesn’t prevent KunQuest from continuing to write.
Did Not Finish
July 21, 2021This semi-autobiographical novel set in Angola penitentiary feels claustrophobic, which makes sense. Hierarchy and respect figure into every move these men make. Point of view and vernacular alternates between new inmate Lil’Chris and established inmate Reverend Rise. I get lost when it’s Lil’Chris’ turn, his is a language I don’t understand or feel like spending the time to work out: So many apostrophes. I do get that he feels a strong pull toward spoken word poetry and that it will be his salvation.
An audio book format might be the way to go here.
An audio book format might be the way to go here.
May 24, 2022
I had a terrible time understanding the narration.
I believe the dialect and dialogue cut out huge masses from understanding the story as well as the anger.
There is a great deal of profanity and the N word is freely spewed.
I believe the dialect and dialogue cut out huge masses from understanding the story as well as the anger.
There is a great deal of profanity and the N word is freely spewed.
July 3, 2022
"To touch without feeling is the ultimate sin."
This Life is a lot like 8 Mile but with a surprising dose of philosophy. It takes a while to get to the meat, but Lil Chris, a teenager in Angola Prison, is caught between two ideological sects who spread their message through rap: Skies Over Gaza and Da One. Skies Over Gaza is led by a man named Rise whose philosophy is that knowledge is power. He works in the law library at the prison, helping inmates appeal their cases. He also teaches classes in the prison's education building. He is a self-identified reformist who sets out to empower people with knowledge to rework the system that keeps them in jail not for rehabilitation, but for punitive reasons only. We actually know very little about Da One, led by Mansa, but the general idea is that he is the revolutionary who is incredibly anti-establishment. As if the MLK/Malcolm X parallel weren't enough, Mansa literally tells Lil Chris about how the Civil Rights Movement was a middle-class conflict only and that MLK didn't care about poor Black people. Lil Chris talks to Rise about this to which Rise admits that the movement was flawed, but not that it was a conspiracy that middle-class Black men created to assimilate with the whites. It becomes a battle of ideologies with Lil Chris caught in the middle.
I think what I really liked about this was how much it resembles the present moment. The conflict between the notion of working within the system to better it versus becoming bitter as a result of victimization and revolting against the system entirely. What's most impressive is how Kunquest treats the two. It's clear which ideology he subscribes to but he doesn't dismiss the other. At the end of the day, Kunquest does a really good job of making anti-intellectualism seem ridiculous, which was not the stance I initially expected. You think, when the setting is in a prison and the prisoners start rapping, that the message is going to be about how you don't need formal education to convey a meaningful message. While this is true to a certain extent, Rise is still hellbent on providing the prisoners with law and civics training. In fact, Rise is very against the notion of blind anger as an engine for change. He champions improving the mind so as to improve your condition. He talks about how, in the real world, the disadvantaged are forced to commit crimes because of what he calls 'raw need'. The practicality that revolutionaries tout resides here -- crimes can be thought of as natural responses to being cornered. Rise says that once you're in prison, you're afforded the time to think about the rules that deprive you of that 'raw need'. You're no longer cornered and you have time to think. This is why Rise tries so hard to empower prisoners to use their own mind.
Admittedly, the first half of this book feels a bit...jumbled, but the latter half is a really insightful ideological analysis that just so happens to take place in a prison.
This Life is a lot like 8 Mile but with a surprising dose of philosophy. It takes a while to get to the meat, but Lil Chris, a teenager in Angola Prison, is caught between two ideological sects who spread their message through rap: Skies Over Gaza and Da One. Skies Over Gaza is led by a man named Rise whose philosophy is that knowledge is power. He works in the law library at the prison, helping inmates appeal their cases. He also teaches classes in the prison's education building. He is a self-identified reformist who sets out to empower people with knowledge to rework the system that keeps them in jail not for rehabilitation, but for punitive reasons only. We actually know very little about Da One, led by Mansa, but the general idea is that he is the revolutionary who is incredibly anti-establishment. As if the MLK/Malcolm X parallel weren't enough, Mansa literally tells Lil Chris about how the Civil Rights Movement was a middle-class conflict only and that MLK didn't care about poor Black people. Lil Chris talks to Rise about this to which Rise admits that the movement was flawed, but not that it was a conspiracy that middle-class Black men created to assimilate with the whites. It becomes a battle of ideologies with Lil Chris caught in the middle.
I think what I really liked about this was how much it resembles the present moment. The conflict between the notion of working within the system to better it versus becoming bitter as a result of victimization and revolting against the system entirely. What's most impressive is how Kunquest treats the two. It's clear which ideology he subscribes to but he doesn't dismiss the other. At the end of the day, Kunquest does a really good job of making anti-intellectualism seem ridiculous, which was not the stance I initially expected. You think, when the setting is in a prison and the prisoners start rapping, that the message is going to be about how you don't need formal education to convey a meaningful message. While this is true to a certain extent, Rise is still hellbent on providing the prisoners with law and civics training. In fact, Rise is very against the notion of blind anger as an engine for change. He champions improving the mind so as to improve your condition. He talks about how, in the real world, the disadvantaged are forced to commit crimes because of what he calls 'raw need'. The practicality that revolutionaries tout resides here -- crimes can be thought of as natural responses to being cornered. Rise says that once you're in prison, you're afforded the time to think about the rules that deprive you of that 'raw need'. You're no longer cornered and you have time to think. This is why Rise tries so hard to empower prisoners to use their own mind.
Admittedly, the first half of this book feels a bit...jumbled, but the latter half is a really insightful ideological analysis that just so happens to take place in a prison.
July 20, 2022
I felt honored to listen to this brilliant audiobook as an advanced reader copy from Netgalley and Agate Publishing, and I feel we are all lucky this book found its way to print. This is a first-hand account of life inside Angola Prison told from the perspective of a young inmate sentenced to life there. How he finds meaning in a life behind bars, how any of the men there do, is a story worth hearing.
Unfortunately, having also tried reading the print copy, I must highly recommend everyone consume this book via audio version, as the vernacular spelled out with lots of dropped consonants and Black English is much harder to read than it is to listen to. (I had no trouble hearing the voices speak in that vernacular, but reading it in the Queen's English is tough.) Indeed, the Southern Review of Books reviewer Amy R. Martin notes, "it isn't just the diction, however; it's the rhythm. Fragmented. Staccato. It has a beat. I didn't so much read this book as listen to it. This Life is aural." And while Martin seems to be speaking figuratively as she translated the written word to an aural one in her mind, I urge you to take the aural path to begin with and get this as an audio book.
The book emphasizes the importance of trusted mentors, the tragedy of holding young people accountable for the rest of their lives for idiotic mistakes they made in boyhood (imagine if they did that to all our white sons); the value of family support and found family; the life-affirming significance of having an outlet for creativity in even the darkest conditions (in Lil Chris' case that creative outlet is rap); and the urgent import of reading and books in opening windows for people.
The story tells Lil Chris' story from his entry as a newbie to the Angola culture to his choosing Rise, an older inmate also serving life, as his mentor. Rise thus gets to have the voice of wisdom, guiding Chris through surviving a lifetime of incarceration. He recognizes Chris as "one of the living among the walking dead."
Lil Chris, now writing under the name Kunquest, is still an inmate at Angola, where he has been imprisoned for more than 25 years, since 1996. The fact that his mentor, Rise, is released, gives everyone hope, but the real meaning of the book is how to make meaning of a life that may never see freedom. Kunquest has done this, but anyone reading this story will still root for him to get out before he's an old man.
Unfortunately, having also tried reading the print copy, I must highly recommend everyone consume this book via audio version, as the vernacular spelled out with lots of dropped consonants and Black English is much harder to read than it is to listen to. (I had no trouble hearing the voices speak in that vernacular, but reading it in the Queen's English is tough.) Indeed, the Southern Review of Books reviewer Amy R. Martin notes, "it isn't just the diction, however; it's the rhythm. Fragmented. Staccato. It has a beat. I didn't so much read this book as listen to it. This Life is aural." And while Martin seems to be speaking figuratively as she translated the written word to an aural one in her mind, I urge you to take the aural path to begin with and get this as an audio book.
The book emphasizes the importance of trusted mentors, the tragedy of holding young people accountable for the rest of their lives for idiotic mistakes they made in boyhood (imagine if they did that to all our white sons); the value of family support and found family; the life-affirming significance of having an outlet for creativity in even the darkest conditions (in Lil Chris' case that creative outlet is rap); and the urgent import of reading and books in opening windows for people.
The story tells Lil Chris' story from his entry as a newbie to the Angola culture to his choosing Rise, an older inmate also serving life, as his mentor. Rise thus gets to have the voice of wisdom, guiding Chris through surviving a lifetime of incarceration. He recognizes Chris as "one of the living among the walking dead."
Lil Chris, now writing under the name Kunquest, is still an inmate at Angola, where he has been imprisoned for more than 25 years, since 1996. The fact that his mentor, Rise, is released, gives everyone hope, but the real meaning of the book is how to make meaning of a life that may never see freedom. Kunquest has done this, but anyone reading this story will still root for him to get out before he's an old man.
February 8, 2023
A life sentence in prison is life, that is, there is living to do in prison, even under a life sentence. Quntos KunQuest, in his novel, This Life, demonstrates that life goes on inside of prison. Since 1996, KunQuest has been living, and writing, in prison.
I have a long history and engagement with writing and writings from prison, with “prison literature.” For a number of years, I volunteered with the American affiliate of PEN International, the writers’ organization, PEN America, in its Prison Writing Program (PWP). As a poet, I sat on the subcommittee that judged poetry submissions from people in prisons and jails from across the nation for PEN’s annual Writing Awards contest. I, myself, have garnered seven PEN Awards, and four Honorable Mentions, in poetry, drama, and nonfiction.
Writers and aspiring writers in prison would submit their works to the writing contest. Aspiring writers often begin with poetry and soon, as John Steinbeck wrote, discover that it’s the most demanding form of writing, and move on to the short story, another demanding form of writing, and finally settle on the novel. Nonetheless, poetry was and continues to be the most submitted to category for PEN’s annual awards contest. Much is awful religious and love poetry.
In This Life, KunQuest is by terms poetic in his prose, though it is informed by Rap and Hip-Hop culture. (The book, itself, is divided into “Verses,” not “Parts.”) KunQuest is a “musician, rapper, visual artist and novelist.” Note that KunQuest is not described as a poet, which bears mentioning, because there is a fine distinction between a rapper and a poet.
As I read This Life, it struck me how music deeply informs Black culture, wherever Black people are, on the plantation, or in the penitentiary. KunQuest, born in 1976, the year America celebrated her 200th birthday, is deeply informed and formed by Rap. As one of the main characters, Lil Chris, KunQuest’s alter ego, or better yet, a composite sketch of young Black men, goes through the brutal prison rite of passage, one sees the evolution of his Rap, from signifying about life on the streets in the Game to a more elevated social commentary, looking at the streets and how they serve as a pipeline to prison, the ultimate social control mechanism. This social commentary critiques and deconstructs the prison-industrial complex and hyperincarceration (what we call “mass incarceration”), and the forces that led to the United States locking up more people in prison than any other nation in the world, and holding them for longer periods of time than any other nation in the world.
People writing from American prisons, from the very beginning of this uniquely American experiment, critiqued the prison system, as documented by James McGrath Morris in Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars. These critiques have made it to the Academy as well as PEN America. A number of years ago, my colleagues and I participated in an American Studies Association Conference panel we proposed, which was a presentation to argue “prison literature” into the canon of American literature. And I recall conversations with members of the PWP Committee, where I articulated that I believed there was a writer somewhere in prison in America who was laboring over what could be the next “Great American Novel.” I don’t think my fellow committee members were convinced of this, nor am I suggesting that This Life is that novel. But This Life must be added to the canon of “prison literature.” The author Rachel Kushner writes that “KunQuest has dreamed up, molded, hammered, and shaped a new mode of fiction: American, poetic, wonderfully free.”
From reading thousands of poems from prisons submitted to PEN’s annual writing contest, one would dig through a lot of rubbish, but would ultimately come across all kinds of jewels. I would hazard a guess that there are jewels among all the other categories, even more remarkable in that the overwhelming majority of people writing from prison have no formal training or education as writers. They have had to forge their craft in the fires of prison. In fact, as Jimmy Santiago Baca, award-winning poet and educator, writes in an essay, “Coming Into Language,” in PEN’s anthology, Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing, edited by the late Bell Gale Chevigny, a former Chair of PWP, people in prisons who have taken up the pen have had to emerge from the darkness of illiteracy into the light of literacy.
In This Life, KunQuest illuminates a cast of characters – to name a few: Lil Chris, Gary Law, No Love, and Mansa Musa – as memorable as characters in the best of fiction, including one of my favorite characters, Edmond Dantes, from The Count of Monte Cristo. Though Alexandre Dumas’ novel is not thought of as a tale of crime and punishment, of reentry and reintegration, it is. It is also a coming-of-age story, in prison.
One of the tragedies of the American penal system, is that, as Norman Mailer discovered when he was researching and writing The Executioner’s Song, and wrote in his introduction of Jack Henry Abbott’s In the Belly of the Beast:
There is a paradox at the core of penology, and from it derives the thousand ills and afflictions of the prison system. It is that not only the worst of the young are sent to prison, but the best – that is, the proudest, the bravest, the most daring, the most enterprising, and the most undefeated of the poor. There starts the horror.
Out of the horrors of the prison system, in spite of, not because of, these proud, brave, and daring men are forged, only to languish in prison for their natural lives or the best years of their lives, only to die shortly after their release.
Rise, one of the main characters in This Life, who is ultimately released through a success petition to the courts, gives an orientation to the new arrivals at Angola State Penitentiary, a former plantation, nicknamed “The Farm,” in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, the setting for this story. He quotes Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, comparing God to a blacksmith. “We are the metal. The fires of the furnace are the trials of life…. The things we go through in life are what shapes us to become the people we are.”
What has shaped Quntos KunQuest? What has shaped This Life?
In reading This Life, one will encounter real life characters and leaders who could give master classes on Constitutional Law, Civics, and Philosophy. They are Lil Chris’ (KunQuest’s) mentors. Despite the prospect of living their lives and dying on The Farm, these characters find purpose, and become conscious of the “infinite potential…of… [a] constantly evolving lifespan.” As a society, we must redeem these lives. Any outstanding debts owed to society can be paid through their contributing their talents to society, not spending the rest of their lives in prison.
I have a long history and engagement with writing and writings from prison, with “prison literature.” For a number of years, I volunteered with the American affiliate of PEN International, the writers’ organization, PEN America, in its Prison Writing Program (PWP). As a poet, I sat on the subcommittee that judged poetry submissions from people in prisons and jails from across the nation for PEN’s annual Writing Awards contest. I, myself, have garnered seven PEN Awards, and four Honorable Mentions, in poetry, drama, and nonfiction.
Writers and aspiring writers in prison would submit their works to the writing contest. Aspiring writers often begin with poetry and soon, as John Steinbeck wrote, discover that it’s the most demanding form of writing, and move on to the short story, another demanding form of writing, and finally settle on the novel. Nonetheless, poetry was and continues to be the most submitted to category for PEN’s annual awards contest. Much is awful religious and love poetry.
In This Life, KunQuest is by terms poetic in his prose, though it is informed by Rap and Hip-Hop culture. (The book, itself, is divided into “Verses,” not “Parts.”) KunQuest is a “musician, rapper, visual artist and novelist.” Note that KunQuest is not described as a poet, which bears mentioning, because there is a fine distinction between a rapper and a poet.
As I read This Life, it struck me how music deeply informs Black culture, wherever Black people are, on the plantation, or in the penitentiary. KunQuest, born in 1976, the year America celebrated her 200th birthday, is deeply informed and formed by Rap. As one of the main characters, Lil Chris, KunQuest’s alter ego, or better yet, a composite sketch of young Black men, goes through the brutal prison rite of passage, one sees the evolution of his Rap, from signifying about life on the streets in the Game to a more elevated social commentary, looking at the streets and how they serve as a pipeline to prison, the ultimate social control mechanism. This social commentary critiques and deconstructs the prison-industrial complex and hyperincarceration (what we call “mass incarceration”), and the forces that led to the United States locking up more people in prison than any other nation in the world, and holding them for longer periods of time than any other nation in the world.
People writing from American prisons, from the very beginning of this uniquely American experiment, critiqued the prison system, as documented by James McGrath Morris in Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars. These critiques have made it to the Academy as well as PEN America. A number of years ago, my colleagues and I participated in an American Studies Association Conference panel we proposed, which was a presentation to argue “prison literature” into the canon of American literature. And I recall conversations with members of the PWP Committee, where I articulated that I believed there was a writer somewhere in prison in America who was laboring over what could be the next “Great American Novel.” I don’t think my fellow committee members were convinced of this, nor am I suggesting that This Life is that novel. But This Life must be added to the canon of “prison literature.” The author Rachel Kushner writes that “KunQuest has dreamed up, molded, hammered, and shaped a new mode of fiction: American, poetic, wonderfully free.”
From reading thousands of poems from prisons submitted to PEN’s annual writing contest, one would dig through a lot of rubbish, but would ultimately come across all kinds of jewels. I would hazard a guess that there are jewels among all the other categories, even more remarkable in that the overwhelming majority of people writing from prison have no formal training or education as writers. They have had to forge their craft in the fires of prison. In fact, as Jimmy Santiago Baca, award-winning poet and educator, writes in an essay, “Coming Into Language,” in PEN’s anthology, Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing, edited by the late Bell Gale Chevigny, a former Chair of PWP, people in prisons who have taken up the pen have had to emerge from the darkness of illiteracy into the light of literacy.
In This Life, KunQuest illuminates a cast of characters – to name a few: Lil Chris, Gary Law, No Love, and Mansa Musa – as memorable as characters in the best of fiction, including one of my favorite characters, Edmond Dantes, from The Count of Monte Cristo. Though Alexandre Dumas’ novel is not thought of as a tale of crime and punishment, of reentry and reintegration, it is. It is also a coming-of-age story, in prison.
One of the tragedies of the American penal system, is that, as Norman Mailer discovered when he was researching and writing The Executioner’s Song, and wrote in his introduction of Jack Henry Abbott’s In the Belly of the Beast:
There is a paradox at the core of penology, and from it derives the thousand ills and afflictions of the prison system. It is that not only the worst of the young are sent to prison, but the best – that is, the proudest, the bravest, the most daring, the most enterprising, and the most undefeated of the poor. There starts the horror.
Out of the horrors of the prison system, in spite of, not because of, these proud, brave, and daring men are forged, only to languish in prison for their natural lives or the best years of their lives, only to die shortly after their release.
Rise, one of the main characters in This Life, who is ultimately released through a success petition to the courts, gives an orientation to the new arrivals at Angola State Penitentiary, a former plantation, nicknamed “The Farm,” in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, the setting for this story. He quotes Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, comparing God to a blacksmith. “We are the metal. The fires of the furnace are the trials of life…. The things we go through in life are what shapes us to become the people we are.”
What has shaped Quntos KunQuest? What has shaped This Life?
In reading This Life, one will encounter real life characters and leaders who could give master classes on Constitutional Law, Civics, and Philosophy. They are Lil Chris’ (KunQuest’s) mentors. Despite the prospect of living their lives and dying on The Farm, these characters find purpose, and become conscious of the “infinite potential…of… [a] constantly evolving lifespan.” As a society, we must redeem these lives. Any outstanding debts owed to society can be paid through their contributing their talents to society, not spending the rest of their lives in prison.
June 9, 2021
This author of this novel is incarcerated in Angola, the same place that this novel takes place in. I think that’s an important factor that informed the writing of this novel because KunQuest has first person authority on what happens there. KunQuest has the amazing ability in this novel to weave this narrative using rap while also talking about a lot of deep subjects regarding the prison system. One of the subjects being about racism and how the justice system does not treat people of color fairly, and people of color are more likely to be put in the system for a long time on charges that white people would serve less time for, or no time at all. The characters themselves have conversations regarding their situation and the law surrounding what made them end up there and how they could get out, but the author also has the characters channel these feelings and conversations into their own writing of raps.
The author does a fantastic job through formatting the novel as though it’s a song, as well as writing the raps in the novel itself where it reads as poetry. Having the music be a central part of the novel works extremely well. My favorite part of the novel was having the climax be a rap battle and having it be less so of a fight on who would have control over the inmates, but which side Lil Chris would choose.
One of the main reasons that I didn’t give this novel a higher score is because of some of the commentary in it regarding queer folk. I think the author balanced how the prison system views sex and gay sex in particular in a well thought out way making it clear on how there are both consensual sex and rape within the system. But there was one line in a rap that could have possibly been alluding to trans people in a negative light, and I wasn’t a fan of how women were viewed a lot in this novel.
The author does a fantastic job through formatting the novel as though it’s a song, as well as writing the raps in the novel itself where it reads as poetry. Having the music be a central part of the novel works extremely well. My favorite part of the novel was having the climax be a rap battle and having it be less so of a fight on who would have control over the inmates, but which side Lil Chris would choose.
One of the main reasons that I didn’t give this novel a higher score is because of some of the commentary in it regarding queer folk. I think the author balanced how the prison system views sex and gay sex in particular in a well thought out way making it clear on how there are both consensual sex and rape within the system. But there was one line in a rap that could have possibly been alluding to trans people in a negative light, and I wasn’t a fan of how women were viewed a lot in this novel.
June 24, 2023
I'm so glad this book exists and hope it gets wider attention. I was captivated from start to finish, and have a greater empathy for incarcerated people, the start of an expanded understanding of prison life and basic criminal justice dysfunction in the U.S., and new knowledge of how life and creativity can still go on (with great effort) behind bars.
There is a fair amount of vernacular, but as a language nerd, I loved this aspect. If you're a fluent English speaker, it's not going to be hard to understand if you're open to learning and absorbing some words and phrases that might be unfamiliar. I really have to side-eye some of these comments about DNF'ing this book because of slang and "apostrophes." If you're uncomfortable, be uncomfortable, push through, learn something.
There is a fair amount of vernacular, but as a language nerd, I loved this aspect. If you're a fluent English speaker, it's not going to be hard to understand if you're open to learning and absorbing some words and phrases that might be unfamiliar. I really have to side-eye some of these comments about DNF'ing this book because of slang and "apostrophes." If you're uncomfortable, be uncomfortable, push through, learn something.
July 13, 2021
It was quite difficult for me to get into the book. To some extent, this is due to the fact that, although it was mentioned in various reviews, I was surprised to find out that the prison is not located in Angola, Africa, but in Angola, Louisiana. My bad!
I was also quite overwhelmed by the amount of jail speak. Maybe my English is just not good enough to sort out highly idiosyncratic syntax and vocabulary while trying to follow discussions of, among other things, the US judicial system, but I felt overwhelmed most of the time and was almost relieved when I reached page 249.
I clearly need to revisit the book in the future .
I was also quite overwhelmed by the amount of jail speak. Maybe my English is just not good enough to sort out highly idiosyncratic syntax and vocabulary while trying to follow discussions of, among other things, the US judicial system, but I felt overwhelmed most of the time and was almost relieved when I reached page 249.
I clearly need to revisit the book in the future .
September 8, 2021
I won a copt of "This Life". It is not a book that I would have purchased for myself. It is written mostly in rap, Ebonics and prison lingo, much of which I did not comprehend.
The story is eye-opening as to the politics of prison life. Many of the black inmates were unjustly given life sentences. Some of them try to learn the law and help themselves to fair treatment, even being released. Most are just resigned to their fate.
The story is eye-opening as to the politics of prison life. Many of the black inmates were unjustly given life sentences. Some of them try to learn the law and help themselves to fair treatment, even being released. Most are just resigned to their fate.
January 1, 2023
Not a bad read by any means, especially once you surrender to the format of the book. A prison book that doesn’t avoid any of the horrors of prison life but instead focuses on the struggle for purpose. I kept expecting an insiders critical look at the prison-for-profit industry but there were only a very few mentions of the injustices done to incarcerated people. I think that’s what is keeping me from giving this book a higher rating, in the end it just becomes another circle of life story.
December 3, 2021
This book is brilliant in profoundly hopeful and heartbreaking ways, and oh my god will it make you mad as hell. The character's perception of the world, their dialogue, their raps-- I already know I will be thinking about for a very long time after finishing. Foreword is very important to read, as is the rest of this book.
December 31, 2022
I liked one of the protagonist's, Rise, very much. He delivered Kunquest's thoughts about the prison system as well as the message that incarcerated people are still people and deserve to be treated as such. I also enjoyed the relationship between Rise and Lil Chris as well as the lyrics each character rhymed. I didn't follow all of the dialect, but that's okay.
July 29, 2021
Some books can change your perception, challenge what you think, push you to see life from other eyes. This is one such novel. Read it and you will never look at those in our prisons the same again.
“To touch without feeling is the ultimate sin.”
“Far worse than blasphemy,”
“To touch without feeling is the ultimate sin.”
“Far worse than blasphemy,”
May 18, 2022
Raw with heart, soul, and resonance! Kunquest's characters shine. So much packed into thos novel about the people who're incarcerated, how they better themselves depsite the criminal justice system's design for them to fail.
January 27, 2023
This book was great. About the humanity in life at prison rather than simply being a narrative of life in prison.
There was a lot I didn’t understand, it took me longer than normal to read because I wanted to really get the songs/raps/poetry in each chapter. But I enjoyed it.
There was a lot I didn’t understand, it took me longer than normal to read because I wanted to really get the songs/raps/poetry in each chapter. But I enjoyed it.
October 26, 2021
This is fine novel with memorable characters and an vivid portrait of prison life. Some readers might find the rap lyrics and the slang offsetting.
November 4, 2021
Its imperfections are what make it compelling and beautiful. Further proof that prisons are full of artists and thinkers and dreamers and we just need to open the doors, sometimes.
September 29, 2022
It gave me a different way to think about the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King. The book left me wondering "what happened to Rise?"
August 31, 2023
Really interesting, glad that I listened to the audiobook version
November 23, 2025
Literary, poetic view into prison, nothing else really like it.
July 11, 2021
I loved this book. A part of that is the author interview in the New Yorker, which I read first, and then again after reading the book. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the...
Such a voice, this man! -- the interview is stunning. And so my impression of the book (a novel, BTW) is indelibly colored by that. And by the fact that he's in Angola -- has been there for 25 years, likely will be for life; that Gary was a strong influence on him and his growth, and that one of his characters is "an ode" to Gary and Lawrence Jenkins; that I can hear Gary on every page, the way he talks about his life in prison....
From the interview: "...prison as an impromptu school. This is the bubble that we didn't ask for. It frees us from a lot of the responsibilities that we would've had on the streets, and it allows us, when the time is done right, to really zero in on the things that hindered us. Prison gives us a chance to understand politics, understand law, understand our history and who came before us, make adjustments in our values and in our personal constitution, learn what trust means, what love means...." He is speaking, of course, of the particular prison experience he had, and Gary as well....
From a blurb on the back cover: " ...written in the secret and perfect language of those who are left behind walls to evolve from a very young age: brotherly love is the code, self-realization is the goal, unending hope is the sorrow....". Like Gary, he grew up in prison. This life matters.
This book felt so familiar, having heard Gary speak so often about his life in Angola. The terminology, the topography, the relationships, the growth -- it was all so familiar. And speaks so powerfully, without trying to, about the crime of punishment....
Such a voice, this man! -- the interview is stunning. And so my impression of the book (a novel, BTW) is indelibly colored by that. And by the fact that he's in Angola -- has been there for 25 years, likely will be for life; that Gary was a strong influence on him and his growth, and that one of his characters is "an ode" to Gary and Lawrence Jenkins; that I can hear Gary on every page, the way he talks about his life in prison....
From the interview: "...prison as an impromptu school. This is the bubble that we didn't ask for. It frees us from a lot of the responsibilities that we would've had on the streets, and it allows us, when the time is done right, to really zero in on the things that hindered us. Prison gives us a chance to understand politics, understand law, understand our history and who came before us, make adjustments in our values and in our personal constitution, learn what trust means, what love means...." He is speaking, of course, of the particular prison experience he had, and Gary as well....
From a blurb on the back cover: " ...written in the secret and perfect language of those who are left behind walls to evolve from a very young age: brotherly love is the code, self-realization is the goal, unending hope is the sorrow....". Like Gary, he grew up in prison. This life matters.
This book felt so familiar, having heard Gary speak so often about his life in Angola. The terminology, the topography, the relationships, the growth -- it was all so familiar. And speaks so powerfully, without trying to, about the crime of punishment....
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