Donald Goines

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Donald Goines (1936-1974) was an African-American writer of urban fiction. A career criminal and drug addict who took up writing during one of his seven prison sentences, Goines’s books are now recognized as almost unbearably authentic portraits of the roughest aspects of the black experience. In addition to his Kenyatta series, written under the pen name Al C. Clark, Goines published a number of stand-alone novels, including Dopefiend, Whoreson, and others.