Greenlee, Sam
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1930-2014) US author in whose Near-Future sf novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1969), a Black man becomes second-in-command in the CIA, where he is the agency's eponymous token spook (a word which here does double duty as racial slur and slang for intelligence agent). He quits to organize Black uprisings in the Cities all across a diseased, racist America, making use of everything he has learned from his years as an Uncle Tom in the CIA. The book was filmed to Greenlee's script as The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) directed by Ivan Dixon; a documentary about the film, Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of The Spook Who Sat by the Door (2011) directed by Christine Acham and Clifford Ward presents an argument that government interference lay behind its limited distribution. [JC]
see also: Race in SF.
Samuel Eldred Greenlee Jr
born Chicago, Illinois: 13 July 1930
died Chicago, Illinois: 19 May 2014
works
- The Spook Who Sat by the Door (New York: Richard W Baron, 1969) [hb/]
links
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