Just ask author Alex Wheatle, the (fictionalized) subject of one of Steve McQueen’s new Small Axe series of films. Wheatle served time in prison after the Brixton riots of 1981. A cellmate told him to read Black British history and books by Black authors. “Wheatle, now an author with 15 books to his credit, says the fiction novels which gripped him most in jail were those of Chester Himes.” – BBC