Stories from El Barrio

Biographies & Memoirs

THOMAS, PIRI

Community & Culture

Avon/Books

Many people write about the ghetto. Piri Thomas lived there. In this book, the author of Down These Mean Streets tells what he found when he returned from a seven year prison term. Friends dying on heroin, or getting rich selling it. Jobs he couldn’t get, not because he lacked training or ability, but because the union was open only to whites. And an indomitable aunt who brought him into her church, where he met the woman who became his wife, and where he began to take an interest in helping others. 
Eventually he got a job working with street children—helping them find highs other than drugs, trying to cool rivalries fueled by frustration, persuading gang leaders to surrender weapons originally intended for bloody street battles. 
But even with success came bitter disappointments. Pervasive discrimination forced Thomas and his family to give up a suburban home. And an appalling hypocritical and selfish boss forced him out of his job—and almost back into prison. 
Piri Thomas writes of these experiences with unselfish candor and compassion. He pictures the poverty and squalor as well as the spirit and vitality of the ghetto in a dramatic story that is blunt, painful, absorbing and profoundly moving.

Savior, Savior, hold my hand

DOUBLEDAY

8vo. x, 333 (3) pp, author's acknowledgments, prologue, Harlem: Suburbia; Harlem; Suburbia; Down South; Harlem; Prison; New York Town. First Printing, 1967. Maroon cloth with gilt lettering to spine. ``This is a document of one man's journey from childhood to maturity and records the sometimes poetic, sometimes brutal story of a life begun in Spanish Harlem. Yet it is not merely a memoir, as his story is shot through with figures that create a vigorous and brooding world family, friends, the people of the streets, and those of prison. The Language is the most corrupt of the city and also that of the most innocent reaches of the human heart. His work in Spanish Harlem was the subject of the award-winning film Petey and Johnny, in which he both appeared and provided the narration." from the jacket flap.

Down These Mean Streets

Arts & Literature

Alfred.A. Knopf

Vintage

Piri Thomas (1928 - 2011) was a writer and poet whose memoir "Down These Mean Streets" became a best-seller.The book describes his struggle for survival as a Puerto Rican/Cuban born and raised in the barrios of New York. It has been in print for 45 years. His other works include Savior, Savior Hold My Hand; Seven Long Times; and Stories from El Barrio. Thomas was involved with drugs, gang warfare and crime. While spending six years in prison, Thomas reflected on the teachings of his mother and father, and realized that a person is not born a criminal. Consequently he decided to use his street and prison know-how to reach at-risk youth, and to help them avoid a life of crime. Thomas was influential in the Nuyorican Movement which included poets Pedro Pietri, Miguel Algarin, and Giannina Braschi, who wrote of life in New York City using a mix of English and Spanish. Thomas traveled around the U.S., Central America and Europe, giving lectures and conducting workshops in colleges and universities. He was the subject of the film "Every Child is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas" by Jonathan Robinson.

Teen & Young Adult

Knopf Books for Young Readers

Piri Thomas, who reached millions of readers with his bestselling autobiography, Down These Mean Streets, now gives readers of all ages a vivid slice of the life in El Barrio-a place where people face their problems with energy, ingenuity and love. He draws vivid stories from his past experiences and makes us feel what it means to be poor and proud and generous; to be streetwise and full of bravado but frightened, too; to struggle to go straight; to be ashamed of being ashamed; to dream. Speaking in the voice of the streets and from his heart, Piri captures the spirit, the laughter and the hope of his people.

A dark-skinned Puerto Rican hung up between the white world and the black, trapped by the brutal code of machismo -- a mainliner, an armed robber, a man in hell, tells all -- how he grew up in a Harlem barrio, and how he got out.

Memoirs

Signet

"A linguistic event. Gutter language, Spanish imagery and personal poetics . . . mingle into a kind of individual statement that has very much its own sound."--The New York Times Book ReviewThirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating, lyrical memoir of his coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas's plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting, and armed robbery--a descent that ended when the twenty-two-year-old Piri was sent to prison for shooting a cop.As he recounts the journey that took him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing Sing to the freedom that comes of self-acceptance, faith, and inner confidence, Piri Thomas gives us a book that is as exultant as it is harrowing and whose every page bears the irrepressible rhythm of its author's voice. Thirty years after its first appearance, this classic of manhood, marginalization, survival, and transcendence is available in an anniversary edition with a new Introduction by the author.

Literature & Fiction

BERKLEY

Down These Mean Streets (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Turtleback Books

"A linguistic event. Gutter language, Spanish imagery and personal poetics . . . mingle into a kind of individual statement that has very much its own sound." --The New York Times Book Review Thirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating, lyrical memoir of his coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas's plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting, and armed robbery--a descent that ended when the twenty-two-year-old Piri was sent to prison for shooting a cop. As he recounts the journey that took him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing Sing to the freedom that comes of self-acceptance, faith, and inner confidence, Piri Thomas gives us a book that is as exultant as it is harrowing and whose every page bears the irrepressible rhythm of its author's voice. Thirty years after its first appearance, this classic of manhood, marginalization, survival, and transcendence is available in an anniversary edition with a new Introduction by the author.

Regional U.S.

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Books by THOMAS, PIRI

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by THOMAS, PIRI. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Stories from El Barrio

Savior, Savior, hold my hand

Down These Mean Streets

Down These Mean Streets

Stories from El Barrio

Stories from El Barrio

Down These Mean Streets

Down These Mean Streets

Down These Mean Streets (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Down These Mean Streets