Piri Thomas, poet, novelist and author of the 1967 memoir Down These Mean Streets, about growing up in Spanish Harlem, died on Monday at age 83.
The New York Times noted that the memoir became a bestseller and "a staple on high school and college reading lists … as Americans seemed to be awakening to the rough cultures that poverty and racism were breeding in cities."
The memoir also influenced other writers. Poet Martin Espada told the Times, "Because he became a writer, many of us became writers. Before Down These Mean Streets, we could not find a book by a Puerto Rican writer in the English language about the experience of that community, in that voice, with that tone and subject matter."
