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| Author | Robert Samuels Toluse Olorunnipa |
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| Language | English |
| Subject | George Floyd |
| Published | 17 May 2022 |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Pages | 432 |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction |
| ISBN | 978-0-593-49061-7 |
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice is a 2022 biography about murder victimGeorge Floyd written byWashington Post journalistsRobert Samuels andToluse Olorunnipa.[1][2]
The book uses the life ofGeorge Floyd and hismurder byMinneapolis police officerDerek Chauvin as a lens through which to examineracism in the United States. The book draws from interviews with many of Floyd's friends, family, and local community members. Floyd's ancestors are discussed—they worked astenant farmers during theReconstruction era. Aspects of Floyd's life, such as his parenting, drug addiction, and convictions, are covered. Race-related commentary about educationhousing segregation,incarceration,police brutality andterrorism in the United States is connected to the life of Floyd.[3]
His Name is George Floyd was awarded the 2023Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction with the following citation: "An intimate, riveting portrait of an ordinary man whose fatal encounter with police officers in 2020 sparked an international movement for social change, but whose humanity and complicated personal story were unknown."[4] According toBook Marks, the book received a "rave" consensus, based on ten critic reviews: seven "rave", two "positive", and one "mixed".[5]
The book was also a finalist for the 2022National Book Award for Nonfiction,[6]J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, andLos Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. Several organizations named it one of the top books of 2022, including TIME[7] and Kirkus Reviews.[8]
Kehinde Andrews ofThe Guardian praised the book's coverage of Floyd, saying that it "does not paint him as a saint but explains his flaws in the context of his experiences". Andrews approved of the authors' "valiant effort to use Floyd's story to educate society about the ills of structural racism", but suggested that they could have focused on a subject such asBreonna Taylor to draw attention to the lesser covered oppression of Black women in the United States.[3]
InThe Atlantic,Imbolo Mbue similarly praised the authors "for presenting Floyd as the complex character that he was". Mbue recommended the book as "expertly researched" and "a necessary and enlightening read", highlighting in particular passages that celebrate African American culture and "depict how much Floyd was loved and how much he loved back". However, Mbue criticized that the book could have "more pointedly" highlighted the "hypocrisy of governments and corporations and all manners of institutions" that showed support for theBlack Lives Matter movements out of ulterior motives.[9]
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