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M. K. Asante

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M.K. Asante, Jr. (b. 1981) is an award-winning author and screenwriter known for authoring works which tend to deal with social justice or civil rights.

Born in Harare, Zimbabwe during the second Chimurenga (uprising), Asante, Jr. is the son of prolific scholar Molefi Kete Asante and choreographer Kariamu Welsh. As a sophmore at Lafayette College, where he would later earn his B.A., Asante, Jr. published his first book, Like Water Running Off My Back. Like Water Running Off My Back was hailed by Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Charles Fuller as "remarkable."

While attending the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Asante, Jr., 19 at the time, wrote and produced the documentary 500 Years Later, an epic film that would go on to receive dozens of awards in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and South America. Asante, Jr. would later go on to earn an M.F.A. from the prestigous UCLA School of Theater Film and Television.

Widely anthologized, Asante, Jr's. writings on music, film, and socio-political issues have appeared in The Encyclopedia of Black Studies, The Journal of Black Studies, and USA Today. He wrote the introduction to the groundbreaking book by collagist Theodore A. Harris and poet Amiri Baraka, Our Flesh of Flames.

Asante, Jr. received international acclaim for his book Beautiful. And Ugly Too (2005), which won the Langston Hughes Award from the American Society of Arts & Letters. The Los Angeles Times called Beautiful. And Ugly Too "a thought provoking journey down the lonely road of widom and whiplash."

M.K. Asante, Jr. - Official Site

M.K. Asante, Jr. - Def Poetry Jam Featured Page

M.K. Asante, Jr. - Interview with Black Reader Review