Design autobiography of malcolm

I sent Malcolm X some rough chapters to read. I was appalled when they were soon returned, red-inked in many places where he had told of his almost father-and-son relationship with Elijah Muhammad. Telephoning Malcolm X, I reminded him of his previous decisions, and I stressed that if those chapters contained such telegraphing to readers of what was to lie ahead, then the book would automatically be robbed of some of its building suspense and drama.

Malcolm X said, gruffly, 'Whose book is this? But late that night Malcolm X telephoned. You're right. I was upset about something. Forget what I wanted changed, let what you already had stand. Several times I would covertly watch him frown and wince as he read, but he never again asked for any change in what he had originally said. Haley's warning to avoid "telegraphing to readers" and his advice about "building suspense and drama" demonstrate his efforts to influence the narrative's content and assert his authorial agency while ultimately deferring final discretion to Malcolm X.

While Marable argues that Malcolm X was his own best revisionist, he also points out that Haley's collaborative role in shaping the Autobiography was notable. Haley influenced the narrative's direction and tone while remaining faithful to his subject's syntax and diction. Marable writes that Haley worked "hundreds of sentences into paragraphs", and organized them into "subject areas".

Andrews writes:. As the work progressed, however, according to Haley, Malcolm yielded more and more to the authority of his ghostwriter, partly because Haley never let Malcolm read the manuscript unless he was present to defend it, partly because in his last months Malcolm had less and less opportunity to reflect on the text of his life because he was so busy living it, and partly because Malcolm had eventually resigned himself to letting Haley's ideas about effective storytelling take precedence over his own desire to denounce straightaway those whom he had once revered.

Andrews suggests that Haley's role expanded because the book's subject became less available to micro-manage the manuscript, and "Malcolm had eventually resigned himself" to allowing "Haley's ideas about effective storytelling" to shape the narrative. Marable studied the Autobiography manuscript "raw materials" archived by Haley's biographer, Anne Romaine, and described a critical element of the collaboration, Haley's writing tactic to capture the voice of his subject accurately, a disjoint system of data mining that included notes on scrap paper, in-depth interviews, and long "free style" discussions.

Marable writes, "Malcolm also had a habit of scribbling notes to himself as he spoke. Wideman and Rampersad agree with Marable's description of Haley's book-writing process. The timing of the collaboration meant that Haley occupied an advantageous position to document the multiple conversion experiences of Malcolm X and his challenge was to form them, however incongruent, into a cohesive workable narrative.

Dyson suggests that "profound personal, intellectual, and ideological changes Although Malcolm X retained final approval of their hybrid text, he was not privy to the actual editorial processes superimposed from Haley's side. The Library of Congress held the answers. This collection includes the papers of Doubleday's then-executive editor, Kenneth McCormick, who had worked closely with Haley for several years as the Autobiography had been constructed.

As in the Romaine papers, I found more evidence of Haley's sometimes-weekly private commentary with McCormick about the laborious process of composing the book. They also revealed how several attorneys retained by Doubleday closely monitored and vetted entire sections of the controversial text in , demanding numerous name changes, the reworking and deletion of blocks of paragraphs, and so forth.

In late , Haley was particularly worried about what he viewed as Malcolm X's anti-Semitism. He therefore rewrote material to eliminate a number of negative statements about Jews in the book manuscript, with the explicit covert goal of 'getting them past Malcolm X,' without his coauthor's knowledge or consent. Thus, the censorship of Malcolm X had begun well prior to his assassination.

Marable says the resulting text was stylistically and ideologically distinct from what Marable believes Malcolm X would have written without Haley's influence, and it also differs from what may have actually been said in the interviews between Haley and Malcolm X. In Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X , Dyson criticizes historians and biographers of the time for re-purposing the Autobiography as a transcendent narrative by a "mythological" Malcolm X without being critical enough of the underlying ideas.

Indeed, the autobiography is as much a testament to Haley's ingenuity in shaping the manuscript as it is a record of Malcolm's attempt to tell his story. Rampersad suggests that Haley understood autobiographies as "almost fiction". But there is no Malcolm untouched by doubt or fiction. Malcolm's Malcolm is in itself a fabrication; the 'truth' about him is impossible to know.

Du Bois inadequate to fully express black humanity as it struggles with oppression, "while Malcolm is seen as the apotheosis of black individual greatness Its second Malcolm—the El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz finale—is a mask with no distinct ideology, it is not particularly Islamic, not particularly nationalist, not particularly humanist. Like any well crafted icon or story, the mask is evidence of its subject's humanity, of Malcolm's strong human spirit.

But both masks hide as much character as they show. The first mask served a nationalism Malcolm had rejected before the book was finished; the second is mostly empty and available. To Eakin, a significant portion of the Autobiography involves Haley and Malcolm X shaping the fiction of the completed self. And [James Hal] Cone asserts that he became an internationalist with a humanist bent.

Marable argues autobiographical "memoirs" are "inherently biased", representing the subject as he would appear with certain facts privileged, others deliberately omitted. Autobiographical narratives self-censor, reorder event chronology, and alter names. According to Marable, "nearly everyone writing about Malcolm X" has failed to critically and objectively analyze and research the subject properly.

Further, Marable believes the "most talented revisionist of Malcolm X, was Malcolm X", [ 68 ] who actively fashioned and reinvented his public image and verbiage so as to increase favor with diverse groups of people in various situations. My life in particular never has stayed fixed in one position for very long. You have seen how throughout my life, I have often known unexpected drastic changes.

Haley writes that during the last months of Malcolm X's life "uncertainty and confusion" about his views were widespread in Harlem, his base of operations. The Autobiography of Malcolm X has influenced generations of readers. Considering the literary impact of Malcolm X's Autobiography , we may note the tremendous influence of the book, as well as its subject generally, on the development of the Black Arts Movement.

Indeed, it was the day after Malcolm's assassination that the poet and playwright, Amiri Baraka , established the Black Arts Repertory Theater, which would serve to catalyze the aesthetic progression of the movement. She [hooks] is not alone. Ask any middle-aged socially conscious intellectual to list the books that influenced his or her youthful thinking, and he or she will most likely mention The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Some will do more than mention it. Some will say that Got inside them. Altered their vision, their outlook, their insight. Changed their lives. Max Elbaum concurs, writing that " The Autobiography of Malcolm X was without question the single most widely read and influential book among young people of all racial backgrounds who went to their first demonstration sometime between and At the end of his tenure as the first African-American U.

Grove Press then published the book later that year. The Autobiography of Malcolm X has sold well since its publication. In film producer Marvin Worth hired novelist James Baldwin to write a screenplay based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X ; Baldwin was joined by screenwriter Arnold Perl , who died in before the screenplay could be finished.

Marable wonders whether this project might have led some within the Nation of Islam and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to try to silence Malcolm X. The book has been published in more than 45 editions and in many languages, including Arabic, German, French, Indonesian.

Design autobiography of malcolm

Important editions include: [ ]. In some editions, it appears at the beginning of the book. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. Redirected from The autobiography of malcolm x. Autobiography of African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist.

Summary [ edit ]. Genre [ edit ]. Construction [ edit ]. Narrative presentation [ edit ]. Collaboration between Malcolm X and Haley [ edit ]. Haley, describing work on the manuscript, quoting Malcolm X [ 45 ]. Myth-making [ edit ]. Legacy and influence [ edit ]. Publication and sales [ edit ]. Screenplay adaptations [ edit ]. Missing chapters [ edit ].

Editions [ edit ]. X, Malcolm; Haley, Alex The Autobiography of Malcolm X 1st hardcover ed. New York: Grove Press. OCLC The Autobiography of Malcolm X 1st paperback ed. Random House. ISBN The Autobiography of Malcolm X paperback ed. Penguin Books. The Autobiography of Malcolm X mass market paperback ed. Ballantine Books. The Autobiography of Malcolm X audio cassettes ed.

Notes [ edit ]. Citations [ edit ]. There, Malcolm X soon finds himself as a hustler in Harlem , the popular African American suburb in New York, and starts doing odd jobs including selling drugs and doing work as a pimp for African American prostitutes. At that time, he was also involved in armed robberies, inviting risks to his life. Unsatisfied with his type of life, he soon returns to Boston where he takes up house burglary as a new job and faces arrest.

When he is thrown behind the bars, he comes to his senses, and seeing no way out of this blind alley of committing crimes and playing hide and seek with the police, he embraces Islam, joining his siblings. Eventually, he stops drugs and starts praying during this time, studying Latin and English, and joining the debates in the prison.

Demonstrating exemplary behavior, the prison officials release him on parole after which he moves in with his brother Wilfred and becomes active in preaching Islam in Detroit. Following this, he meets Elijah Muhammad, the Muslim leader, and soon becomes the minister in the organization sheer by his passion and hard work. Becoming popular as the new convert among the Muslim circles in the United States, he starts preaching peace and Islam despite his suspension from the organization after his advocacy of violence and African American unity.

After his suspension, he starts facing threats to his life which leads him to give up his membership of the organization of Islam to start his own, Muslim Mosque and preach Islam. Does free will exist or are human lives determined by outside factors? The Great Questions Foundation seeks to promote liberal education and core-text and discussion-based learning at the community college through supporting faculty development and course redesign and helping to establish and support core-text programs and courses.

How do individuals know what they know? What is Justice? Does free will exist? What is Love? Is there a Supreme Being or Beings? What is beauty? What is our relationship to the non-human world? What is the best form of government? What is the Good Life and How do I live it? Once he is motivated, no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom.

Malcolm X. Who am I? What is justice? The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Alex Haley. Malcolm, and Alex Haley. The autobiography of Malcolm X.