The Dead Are Arising

The result is this magisterial work that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his followers stir with a purpose to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting his life not only within the political struggles of his day but also against the larger backdrop of American history, this remarkable masterpiece traces his path from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary.

An author who saw Malcolm X speak and could not stand the phrase ‘we may never know’, Payne writes cinematically from start to finish and delivers extraordinary revelations – from a hair-raising scene of Malcolm’s clandestine meeting with the KKK to a minute-by-minute account of his murder in Harlem in 1965, in which he makes the case for the complicity of the American government.