In the Shadow of the American Dream is a posthumously published collection of the writings of American artist and activist David Wojnarowicz, composed throughout the 1970s and 1980s against the backdrop of downtown New York and the era’s political and cultural chaos. Chronicling the artist’s life from age 17 until his AIDS-related death at 37, Wojnarowicz documents life lived at the edges of legality, sexuality, health and power, while dismantling the myths of freedom and prosperity sold by Reagan-era America. Across journal entries, polemics and experimental prose, Wojnarowicz moves between autobiography and social critique, writing on queer desire, state violence, censorship, AIDS and survival with vivid clarity. Standing as both a cultural autopsy and a personal record of the artist, In the Shadow of the American Dream captures Wojnarowicz as a witness to a moment when art, sex and politics collided with devastating urgency.