It's Gangsta Lit

摘要

Drug dealer turned pub-lisher Vickie Stringer addressed a booksellers' conference in Chicago last week, trying to explain the runaway success of her line of what she calls hip-hop novels. Her authors don't appear on the "Today" show. Their gritty tales of easy money, faithless love and betrayal are seldom reviewed. Their protagonists- gangbangers and hustlers- rarely end up in books. Her secret? "The stories," says Stringer, who edits and distributes the books herself, "are sympathetic to people who grew up rough."