Leonard Pitts, Jr. (born October 11, 1957) was born and raised in Southern California and now lives in suburban Washington, DC, with his wife and children.
He is a nationally-syndicated columnist and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He was originally hired by the Miami Herald to critique music, but within a few years he received his own column in which he dealt extensively with race, politics, and culture. He lives in Bowie, Maryland. He has won awards for his writing from the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and was first nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, eventually claiming the honor in 2004.
Pitts' life as a writer is the subject of this in-depth, one-on-one interview conducted by host Robin Reshard.
Freeman
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Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Agate Bolden; Original edition (May 8, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932841644
ISBN-13: 978-1932841640
Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 1.3 x 8.9 inches
Freeman, the new novel by Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes place in the first
few months following the Confederate surrender and the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln. Upon learning of Lee's surrender, Sam--a runaway slave who
once worked for the Union Army--decides to leave his safe haven in
Philadelphia and set out on foot to return to the war-torn South. What
compels him on this almost-suicidal course is the desire to find his wife,
the mother of his only child, whom he and their son left behind 15 years
earlier on the Mississippi farm to which they all "belonged."
At the same time, Sam's wife, Tilda, is being forced to walk at gunpoint
with her owner and two of his other slaves from the charred remains of his
Mississippi farm into Arkansas, in search of an undefined place that would
still respect his entitlements as slaveowner and Confederate officer.
The book's third main character, Prudence, is a fearless, headstrong white
woman of means who leaves her Boston home for Buford, Mississippi, to start
a school for the former bondsmen, and thus honor her father’s dying wish.
At bottom, Freeman is a love story--sweeping, generous, brutal,
compassionate, patient--about the feelings people were determined to honor,
despite the enormous constraints of the times. It is this aspect of the book
that should ensure it a strong, vocal, core audience of African-American
women, who will help propel its likely critical acclaim to a wider audience.
At the same time, this book addresses several themes that are still hotly
debated today, some 145 years after the official end of the Civil War. Like
Cold Mountain, Freeman illuminates the times and places it describes from a
fresh perspective, with stunning results. It has the potential to become a
classic addition to the literature dealing with this period. Few other
novels so powerfully capture the pathos and possibility of the era
particularly as it reflects the ordeal of the black slaves grappling with
the promise--and the terror--of their new status as free men and women.
Before
I Forget
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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Agate Bolden (March 20, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932841431
ISBN-13: 978-1932841435
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 8.9 inches
This powerful novel of three generations of black men bound by blood — and by histories of mutual love, fear, and frustration — gives author Leonard Pitts the opportunity to explore the painful truths of black men's lives, especially as they play out in the fraught relations of fathers and sons. As 50-year-old Mo tries to reach out to his increasingly tuned-out son Trey (who himself has become an unwed teenaged father), he realizes that the burden of grief and anger he carries over his own estranged father has everything to do with the struggles he encounters with his son. Part road novel, part character study, and part social critique, and written in compulsively readable prose, Before I Forget is the work of a major new voice in American fiction. Pitts knows inside and out the difficulties facing black men as they grapple with the complexities of their roles as fathers.
Forward
From this Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2009 Daily Triumphs, Tragedies, and Curiosities
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Paperback: 349 pages
Publisher: Agate Bolden; Original edition (August 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932841326
ISBN-13: 978-1932841329
Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
Since 1976, when he was an 18-year-old junior at USC, Leonard Pitts'
writing has been winning awards, including the Pulitzer and five National
Headliner Awards. This book collects his best newspaper columns, along with
select longer pieces. The book is arranged chronologically under three broad
subject headings: “Waiting for Someday to Come,” about children and family;
“White Men Can’t Jump (and Other Stupid Myths),” about race, gender, sexual
orientation, religion, and other fault lines of American culture; and
“Forward from this Moment,” about life after the September 11 attacks,
spirituality, American identity, and Britney Spears.
Pitts has a readership in the multi-millions across the country, and his
columns generate an average of 2500 email responses per week. His
enthusiastic fans are certain to embrace this collection of the best of his
newspaper and magazine work, published to coincide with the release of his
first novel, Before I Forget. Forward from this Moment is an essential
collection from one of America’s most important voices.
Becoming
Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood
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Paperback: 263 pages
Publisher: Agate Bolden (June 18, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932841172
ISBN-13: 978-1932841176
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
The fatherless black family is a problem that grows to bigger proportions every year as generations of black children grow up without an adult male in their homes. As this dire pattern grows worse, what can men do who hope to break it, when there are so few models and so little guidance in their own homes and communities? Where can they learn to “become Dad?” When Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Pitts—who himself grew up with an abusive father whose absences came as a relief—interviewed dozens of men across the country, he found both discouragement and hope, as well as deep insights into his own roles as son and father. An unflinching investigation, both personal and journalistic, of black fatherhood in America, this is the best, most pivotal book on this profoundly important issue.
“Many of us no longer feel obligated to engage with facts that contradict what we wish to believe. See the issue is not simply that we do not have the facts, it is that we do not want the facts.”
Offical Site for Leonard Pitts, Jr.
