top of page

KING: A LIFE

Click here to buy now, including signed, personally inscribed copies

5dAR%QV9Qva7n58YyZRYyA_thumb_c9d0.jpg

Purchase Signed Copies

Purchase a signed, personally inscribed hardcover.

Purchase a signed, personally inscribed paperback.

An Intimate Portrait

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize.

The first major biography of King in 40 years, based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of newly discovered documents, this is King like you've never seen him before: flawed, brave, radical...and under heavy attack by the FBI.

ORDER YOUR COPY

“A landmark biography … Monumental.”

New York Times

“Supple, penetrating, heartstring-pulling and compulsively readable... The first comprehensive biography of King in three decades...and it supplants David J. Garrow’s 1986 biography Bearing the Cross as the definitive life of King... [Eig’s is] a clean, clear, journalistic voice, one that employs facts the way Saul Bellow said they should be employed, each a wire that sends a current...Eig’s book is worthy of its subject.”

―Dwight Garner, The New York Times

5udsII2nT8aHEBu9RfX7%w_thumb_29c7.jpg

Based on New FBI Files

The first King biography written with access to thousands of recently released pages of FBI files as well as thousands of personal papers from King's associates and friends.

BUY THE BOOK

Media Highlights

PBS Interview: Jonathan Eig, On "King: A Life"

PBS Interview: Jonathan Eig, On "King: A Life"

Explore the legendary life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Pulitzer Prize author Jonathan Eig in this captivating interview with Dr....

Feb 15

The Real MLK

The Real MLK

David Garrow writes in The Spectator that King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig, will succeed Garrow's own Bearing the Cross as the standard...

Apr 27, 2023

A Work in Progress: Why I Wrote MLK

A Work in Progress: Why I Wrote MLK

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg asked me to explain why I decided to write a book about MLK. I said I was trying to learn from...

Apr 8, 2023

Mahalia Jackson at Soldier Field in Chicago. Photo: Lowell K. Riley.

5udsII2nT8aHEBu9RfX7%w_thumb_29c7.jpg

FBI file

Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta King. Photo: AP

King at Soldier Field. Photo: Lowell K. Riley

King at Soldier Field. Photo: Lowell K. Riley

King at Soldier Field. Photo: Lowell K. Riley

King at Soldier Field. Photo: Lowell K. Riley

King at Soldier Field. Photo: Lowell K. Riley

Image A.JPG

King at Fire Island in New York. Photo: courtesy of William Wachtel.

King upon release from court in Montgomery. Photo: AP.

White anti-protesters in Chicago, 1966. Photo: AP

King and Abernathy arrested in Birmingham. Photo: AP

MOW 01-22B.tif

King at the March on Washington, 1963. Photo: Bob Adelman.

UQj05IZjTz+iyYNeNEFOHQ_thumb_89ab.jpg

Jonathan Eig with attorney Fred D. Gray.

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_29d0.jpg

master-pnp-ppmsca-65100-65196u 1962 Parks SCLC 2.tif

With Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. Photo: Library of Congress.

Tom Dent at King family grave.

master-pnp-ppmsca-65100-65194u 1962 LOOK.tif

With Fred Shuttlesworth and Rosa Parks. Photo: Library of Congress.

master-pnp-ds-04400-04413u 1963 March leaders with JFK USNews.tif

At the White House following March on Washington.

master-pnp-cph-3d00000-3d01000-3d01800-3d01847u 1964 with Malcolm at Senate debate Civil R

King and Malcolm X meet for only time. Photo: Library of Congress.

master-pnp-cph-3c20000-3c26000-3c26500-3c26560u 1960 MLK and cross burned on lawn.tif

King and his son examine cross burned on their yard. Photo: Library of Congress

M1994_MLK__0730_SCLC_264-26_MLK_Rabey_ChiPool.tif

King and Al Raby at Chicago pool hall. Photo: Bob Fitch

Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._and_Lyndon_Johnson_3.jpg

King and Lyndon Johnson. Photo: LBJ Library.

Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Montgomery_arrest_1958.jpg

Arrested in Montgomery, 1958.

M1994_0220_MLK_Kids_Gadson_459-25.tif

Mississippi march, 1966. Photo: Bob Fitch

BUY THE BOOK

bottom of page