*WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN NON-FICTION**Finalist for the National Book Award for
Non-fiction*'His Name Is George Floyd is essential for our times.' Ibram X. Kendi author of
How to Be an Antiracist 'An intimate unvarnished and scrupulous account of his
life...brilliantly revealing.' NEW YORK TIMES You know how he died. This is how he lived. Who
was George Floyd? What did he hope for? What was life like for him? And why has his death been
the catalyst for such a powerful global response? The murder of George Floyd sparked a summer
of activism and unrest all over the world in 2020 from Shetland to São Paolo as people
marched under the Black Lives Matter banner demanding an end to racial injustice. But behind a
face that would be graffitied onto countless murals and a name that has become synonymous with
civil rights there is the reality of one man's stolen life. In His Name is George Floyd we
meet the kind young boy who talked his friends out of beating up a skinny kid from another
neighbourhood and then befriended him on the walk home. Big Floyd the high school American
football player who ignored his coach's pleas to be more aggressive and felt queasy at the
sight of blood. The man who fell victim to an opioid epidemic we are only just beginning to
understand. The sensitive son and loving father constantly in search of a better life in a
society determined to write him off based on things he had no control over: where he grew up
the size of his body and the colour of his skin. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with
friends and family members His Name Is George Floyd reveals the myriad ways that structural
racism shaped Floyd's life and death - from his forebears' roots in slavery to an underfunded
education the overpolicing of his community and the devastating snare of the prison system. By
offering us an intimate portrait of this one emblematic life Robert Samuels and Toluse
Olorunnipa deliver a powerful and moving exploration of how a man who simply wanted to breathe
ended up touching the world.
