We asked Zoboi and Salaam to interview each other about their new YA novel, Punching the Air, which PW described in a starred review as “a powerful indictment of institutional racism and mass incarceration.” He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama, among other honors. Salaam is now a poet, activist, and inspirational speaker. Now known as the Exonerated Five, their story has been documented in the award-winning film The Central Park Five by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon and in Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed series When They See Us. In 2002, after the young men spent years of their lives behind bars, their sentences were overturned. Yusef Salaam was just 15 years old when his life was upended after being wrongly convicted with four other boys in the “Central Park jogger” case. She is also the author of Pride and My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, and the editor of the anthology Black Enough. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, Ibi Zoboi is the author of the debut YA novel American Street, a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book.
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