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Books by Walter Mosley
What Next:
A Memoir Toward World Peace /
Life Out of Context /
Devil in A Blue Dress /
Fear of the Dark (audiobook )
Little Scarlet (An Easy Rawlins Novel) /
Cinamon Kiss (audiobook) /
This Year You Write Your Novel /
Fortunate Son
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What Next
A Memoir Toward World Peace
By Walter Mosley Walter Mosley's
What Next dares to
propose that African Americans can have a voice and play a
leading role in creating world peace. It challenges global
capitalism, which profits from creating wars, hunger and death
around the world. It condemns our government's corrupt political
leadership and its subservience to corporations as opposed to
the democratic will of the people. And perhaps most provocative
of all, it encourages everyday people to take action to bring
about world peace.
Shocked by the events of 9/11 (witnessed from
his New York apartment), best-selling author Mosley like many
other Americans, questioned why our enemies hate us so. Mosley's
answer did not come from the endless news coverage, but from
conversations he had as a child and as an adult with his father.
these conversations provided a background and a filter for
Mosley to explore what it means for African Americans to be
Americans, to be attacked by America's enemies, and to stand for
world peace.
Leroy Mosley, the author's father, was a hard
working provider, a deep thinker, and a contemporary urban
philosopher. Drafted into the army during the Second World War,
he quickly discovered German troops shot at him just as readily
as they did other Americans. This experience convinced Leroy
that he was indeed a full-fledged citizen of the United States.
Watching the trail of smoke rise from the damaged twin towers,
the younger Mosley was reminded of his father's journey to his
own self-styled emancipation
Reader be warned: this is not another 9/11
book. In an engaging and unique style Mosley argues, for African
Americans, with centuries of experience fighting against
slavery, racism, and oppression, the struggle for global
equality is a natural role.
Directed primarily to African Americans
embraceable by all,
What Next is a call to action for
bringing about world peace. * * * *
* Walter
Mosley Signs Deal
with Black Classic Press of
Baltimore Best-selling author Walter Mosley has chosen
Black Classic Press, a Baltimore independent press and
publisher, to bring out his new book rather than a more
corporate publisher such as W.W. Norton. This new book will be
entitled
What Next
: An African-American Initiative Toward
World Peace. This non-fiction work, we believe, will be out
sometime early 2003.
In 1996, Mosley gave his manuscript
Gone Fishin' an unpublished work of the early years of his
fictional hero Easy Rawlins, to Black Classic Press, which sold
over 100,000 copies of this detective novel.
In this new non-fictional work, Mosley
explores black popular opinion on world peace, terrorism, and
war with Iraq. He looks at his relationship with his father, a
WW II veteran, to examine what American identity and American
patriotism means to blacks. The book will be hardcover, 124
pages. Paul Coates, publisher of Black Classic Press, plans to
print 40,000 in the first printing.
Though not a 9/11 book, Mosley, according to
Coates, was "inspired by that event." Mosley attempts
"to create a dialogue around the black community's
perspective on revenge, security, and peace." What Next
is intended as a "conversation, not a manifesto."
Gone Fishin'
is the first novel about Ezekiel "Easy"
Rawlins and Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, and
chronicles in language both earthy and lyrical their
early years in 1939 Houston and the swamp lands of
pariah, Texas. A tale of youthful naivete and adult
passions, murder, and redemption,
Gone Fishin'
reveals for the first time the forces that shaped the
adult characters enjoyed by millions in the five novels
featuring the reluctant detective and his deadly
sidekick.
This unique
collaboration, the first between a best-selling African
American author and an independent African
American-owned publisher, was stimulated by a comment
made during a PEN Open Book Committee panel moderated by
Mosley.
| "When it was suggested that once in a while successful
Black authors should publish a book with a Black publisher, I
felt it made a lot of sense," Mosley said.With the blessing of W.W. Norton, his usual publisher, Mosley
began to explore such a collaboration.
His search was rewarded
when he met Paul Coates, publisher of the Baltimore-based press.
Coates, whose press specializes in publishing long-lost treasure
of African-American literature and important work by
contemporary author, felt the novel was a perfect fit for his
publishing program and moved aggressively to acquire the book. |
 |
"Walter Mosley is one of our finest living American
novelists, yet this powerful novel has remained unpublished
until now. And while he has gone on to unanimous acclaim for his
Easy Rawlins detective series and other novels, i believe the
publication of Gone Fishin' will show not only the depth
of Walter's early genius but will also forge some important
links in our undertaking of the moral complexity and richness of
the characters who populate his later fiction."
Gone Fishin'
was published 1997 by Black Classic
Press. Walter Mosley is the author of fourteen critically
acclaimed books and has been translated into twenty-one languages. His
popular mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins began with
Devil in a Blue
Dress in 1990, which was translated to the notable 1995 film.
Mosley has also written three works of literary fiction, two works of
science fiction, a first volume in a new mystery series Fearless Jones,
and two works of nonfiction,
Workin' on the Chain Gang and Black
Genius. he most recently published a collection of short stories
featuring Easy Rawlins, Six Easy Pieces.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, he now lives in New York City. * * * *
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posted 3/10/03 /
updated 1 April 2008 |
