Quntos KunQuest

Quntos KunQuest

Novelist, Artist, Songwriter

2024 Fellow

Biography

Quntos KunQuest (he/him) is an author, artist, and songwriter. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, where as a teenager he recorded and performed as a rapper. His writing is often voiced as hip-hop and explores Black becoming, identity, perspective, and manhood.

KunQuest is the author of This Life: A Novel (Agate, 2021), the story of two young men laboring to draw meaning from long-term imprisonment and charting the path to their own becoming. His writing has been published in BOMB Magazine and LitHub.

He is now working on his second novel, On Everything I Love, set in his hometown of Shreveport. This Life has been translated into French and was awarded a 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the Debut Fiction category. KunQuest has been incarcerated since 1995 at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.