![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The book is soapy and sexy, bringing readers deep into Winter’s world, carrying them along on her descent from pampered princess to inmate, yet another casualty of the War on Drugs. More than two decades later, The Coldest Winter Ever has sold more than 1 million copies-and it’s easy to see why. The book was all the rage among her group of friends, other middle-aged, middle- and working-class Black women. My aunt, then an administrator at a Cincinnati social service agency, gave me a copy with her strong endorsement. The Black-owned bookstores, street vendors, and Barnes & Noble outposts where people flocked to buy their copies couldn’t keep up with the demand. But Souljah’s foray into fiction-she’d written a memoir in 1994-was an immediate success. The book was published in April of that year with an initial print run of 30,000 copies, an optimistic bet on a debut novel from a Black author. From food to crime to gender to exercise to music to technology to activism to foreign policy to environment to politics, the period set the stage for the turmoil of today. This article is featured in The Nation’s blockbuster special issue, “ The ’90s: Cradle of the Present,” a fascinating look at the ways that the decade forged the current moment. ![]()
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