A translation of Vivo per questo (Italy 2017). With critical essays and translation by Professor Clarissa Clo, San Diego State University.Advance word on the title:Nothing is more hip-hop than an individual documenting their experiences from nothing tosomething and using those writings to take them all over the world. Amir's book does just that inan international B-boy stance.Parker Edison, host and co-creator of The Parker Edison Project podcast on KPBS Public MediaAmir Issaa reflects with extraordinary maturity and honesty, pushing himself and others to growand change reality. The stakes are high: Italy is increasingly falling prey to a morbid nostalgia forfascism. With his voice as an artist with a hybrid identity, Amir's work helps reconcile Italy with anew future and the world of diversity. A beautiful autobiography, written with courage andsincerity.Amara Lakhous, author of Clash of Civilization Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio and Professorof Italian Studies at Yale University.Too often, when told by or through unconventional means, stories fall through the cracks. Yetthese are often the stories that best hold a powerful mirror to our societies, the ones that help usdiscover new meanings or reconstitute old ones. "Inossidabile," one of Amir Issaa's early pieces,tells it all: culture happens when people meet. For him and others, hip-hop provides a languageof translation for a diversity of stories. This Is What I Live For, a bilingual edition of Issaa'smemoir, migrates an important story of cultural dialogue into yet another linguistic sphere, whereit will no doubt find parallel voices and choral agreement.Pasquale Verdicchio, Professor Emeritus of Italian, University of California, San Diego