the autobiography of malcolm x book review

Marable artfully strips away the layers and layers of myth that have been lacquered onto his subject’s life - first by Malcolm himself in that famous memoir, and later by both supporters and opponents after his assassination in 1965 at the age of 39. This volume does not provide much psychological insight into why Malcolm X became such a protean figure (or why he needed to distance “his inner self from the outside world”), and it lacks the urgency and fierce eloquence of Malcolm X’s own “Autobiography.” Still, Mr. files, Web resources and interviews with members of Malcolm X’s inner circle. The book draws from diaries, letters, F.B.I.

In his revealing and prodigiously researched new biography, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” Manning Marable - a professor at Columbia University and the director of its Center for Contemporary Black History, who died just last week - vividly chronicles these many incarnations of his subject, describing the “multiple masks” he donned over the years, while charting the complex and contradiction-filled evolution of his political and religious beliefs. A country bumpkin who became a zoot-suited entertainer who became a petty criminal who became a self-taught intellectual who became a white-hating black nationalist who became a follower of orthodox Islam who became an international figure championing “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.” He was a master of reinvention who had as many names as he did identities: Malcolm Little, Homeboy, Jack Carlton, Detroit Red, Big Red, Satan, Malachi Shabazz, Malik Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and, most famously, Malcolm X.

The autobiography of malcolm x book review