Assata Shakur didn’t die

Once your book gets published, you can no longer pass away. In the musical "Iris (Says Goodbye)" (by Margot Greve and Ben Kopp), they keep singing: "We are here until our name is spoken for the last time."
I believe we are here until the last copy of our book is destroyed.

A shelf in the Myriobiblion

Assata Shakur might be gone for the people in her life—her friends, her family, and the Federal Bureau of Intimidation—but to the rest of us, she’s always here. When I heard about her passing, I looked up at my shelf: ASSATA, une autobiographie, the French translation of her autobiography (brought to the Francophone world by Collectif Cases Rebelles, gifted to me by Heta Rundgren, PhD from Feminist Readings Network 🙏🏾) was still there. It didn’t magically disappear, and that’s because she didn’t die.

She cannot die.

Do you know who dies, though? Dogs. Do you know why? Because they never write anything. Unless they bite your hand off or leave you with some visible scar, when they die, they just take everything they came with. Everything. With dogs, only the present time matters. You can’t tell them, "I will enjoy the rest of you later." Writers at least have the decency to stay in your life as long as you want them to.