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Encyclopedia entry: Iceberg Slim
- Article from:
- The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
- Author:
Copyright© The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information)
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Iceberg Slim
(1918–1992), novelist, autobiographer, essayist, and most prominent author of the street genre, which emerged in the 1960s. Born in Chicago, Iceberg Slim (the street and later pen name of Robert Beck) spent the happiest years of his childhood in Rockford, Illinois, where he lived between 1924 and 1928 with his mother and stepfather. Abandoned by her husband, Slim's mother had supported her infant son in a variety of jobs, including door-to-door hairdressing. Slim's stepfather, a kind and loving man, lifted his new family to economic security until Slim's mother left him for a violent gambler. For the three and a half years that they lived together, Slim hated the new ...