What Happened, Miss Simone?
A Biography
Alan Light
“You can hypnotise an entire audience and make them feel a certain way. I think about what they’re feeling, because I’m making sure they feel a certain way. And I know when I’ve got them”
Available as Paperback, eBook
Inspired by the Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? is an intimate and vivid portrait of the twentieth-century icon Nina Simone.
‘From her raging, handwritten letters to late-night phone calls with David Bowie, this biography gets up close and personal with the tempestuous Nina Simone’ Observer
Drawing on glimpses into previously unseen diaries, rare interviews and childhood journals, and with the aid of her daughter, What Happened, Miss Simone? tells the story of the classically trained pianist who became a soul legend, a committed civil rights activist and one of the most influential, provocative and least understood artists of our time.
This is the story of the real Miss Simone.
“Her willingness to speak her mind shines out of every page”
the Times
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“Arrestive telling of the high priestess of soul’s life story…What makes this portrait so compelling are the extras; think of the book as a director’s cut”
mojo
“She is loved or feared, adored or disliked, but few who have met her music or glimpsed her soul react with moderation”
Maya Angelou
“Explores the huge impact [Nina Simone] made for civil rights through her music, as well as her activism”
observer
“Traces a path through the sad and bewildering tangle that was Simone’s life”
telegraph
Alan Light
A veteran music journalist, Alan Light is the author of The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” and Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain. Light was previously the editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin and a senior writer for Rolling Stone. He is also a frequent contributor to the New York Times.
Watch the trailer for What Happened Miss Simone? on Netflix
