Les Payne the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist embarked in 1990 on a
nearly thirty-year-long quest to create an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X one that would
separate fact from fiction. The result is this historic National Book Award-winning biography
which interweaves previously unknown details of Malcolm X's life-from harrowing Depression-era
vignettes to a moment-by-moment retelling of the 1965 assassination-into an extraordinary
account that contextualizes Malcolm X's life against the wider currents of American history.
Bookended by essays from Tamara Payne Payne's daughter and primary researcher who heroically
completed the biography after her father's death in 2018 The Dead Are Arising affirms the
centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.
