"Long-overdue translation of classic novel Down these mean streets (New York: Knopf, 1967), which was important for the development of US Puerto Rican literature. This bildungsroman focuses on the adolescent life of the author, a black Puerto Rican growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1960s. The novel introduces important issues of racial discrimination, intergenerational and ethnic conflict, and the overall marginalization of Puerto Ricans during those years"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58. http://www.loc.gov/hlas