Paul Beatty
Paul Beatty | |
---|---|
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | June 9, 1962
Education | Brooklyn College (MFA) Boston University (MA) |
Genre | Fiction, poetry |
Years active | 1990s–present |
Notable works | The White Boy Shuffle (1996) The Sellout (2015) |
Notable awards | 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award; 2016 Man Booker Prize |
Paul Beatty (born June 9, 1962) is an American author and an associate professor of writing at Columbia University.[1] In 2016, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout. It was the first time a writer from the United States was honored with the Man Booker.
Early life and education
He was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1962. He is a 1980 graduate of
Career
In 1990, Beatty was crowned the first ever Grand
His first novel, The White Boy Shuffle (1996), received a positive review in The New York Times from reviewer Richard Bernstein, who called the book "a blast of satirical heat from the talented heart of Black American life."[8] His second novel, Tuff (2000), received a positive notice in Time magazine, where it was described as being "like an extended rap song, its characters recounting struggle and survival with the bravado of hip-hoppers."[9] In 2006, Beatty edited an anthology of African-American humor called Hokum and wrote an article in The New York Times on the same subject.[10] His 2008 novel Slumberland was about an American DJ in Berlin, and reviewer Patrick Neate said: "At its best, Beatty's writing is shockingly original, scabrous and very funny."[11]
In his 2015 novel The Sellout, Beatty chronicles an urban farmer who tries to spearhead a revitalization of slavery and segregation in a fictional Los Angeles neighborhood. In The Guardian, Elisabeth Donnelly described it as "a masterful work that establishes Beatty as the funniest writer in America",[12] while reviewer Reni Eddo-Lodge called it a "whirlwind of a satire", going on to say: "Everything about The Sellout's plot is contradictory. The devices are real enough to be believable, yet surreal enough to raise your eyebrows."[13] The book took more than five years to complete.[14]
The Sellout was awarded the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction,[15][16] and the 2016 Man Booker Prize.[17][18] Beatty is the first American to have won the Man Booker Prize, for which all English-language novels became eligible in 2014.[19][20]
Awards and honors
- 2009 Creative Capital Award for Slumberland
- 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction), winner for The Sellout.[21]
- 2016 Booker Prize winner for The Sellout.
- 2017 International Dublin Literary Award long-list for The Sellout
Works
Poetry
- Big Bank Take Little Bank (1991). Nuyorican Poets Cafe Press. ISBN 0-9627842-7-3
- Joker, Joker, Deuce (1994). ISBN 0-14-058723-3
Fiction
- ISBN 0-312-28019-X[8]
- Tuff (2000). Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40122-9
- Slumberland (2008). Bloomsbury USA, ISBN 978-1596912410
- ISBN 978-1786071477(hardback), 978-1786070159 (paperback)
Edited volume
- Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (2006). Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1596911482
References
- ^ Paul Beatty faculty page, Columbia University School of the Arts
- ^ Millen, Robbie, [1], The Times, October 25, 2016.
- ^ "Bio".
- ISBN 1-933368-82-9.
- ^ Aptowicz, p. 46.
- ^ Aptowicz, p. 80.
- ^ "Grants to artists, Poetry 1993 | Paul Beatty", Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
- ^ Philadelphia, Desa, "Books: Tuff By Paul Beatty", Time Magazine, May 1, 2000.
- ^ Beatty, Paul (January 22, 2006). "Black Humor". The New York Times.
- ^ Neate, Patrick (December 6, 2008). "Jukebox sommelier". The Guardian'.
- ^ Donnelly, Elisabeth, "Paul Beatty on writing, humor and race: 'There are very few books that are funny'", The Guardian, March 10, 2015.
- ^ Eddo-Lodge, Reni, "The Sellout by Paul Beatty review – a whirlwind satire about racial identity", The Guardian, May 11, 2016.
- ^ "A Swiftian hero", The Economist, October 29, 2016. Article withdrawn for similarities with other articles, with apology.
- ^ "National Book Critics Circle Announces Award Winners for Publishing Year 2015" Archived November 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, March 17, 2016. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
- ^ Sandhu, Sukhdev, "Paul Beatty: 'Slam poetry, TED talks: they're for short attention spans'", The Guardian, June 24, 2016.
- ^ "Sellout Wins 2016 Man Booker Prize" Archived 2016-10-28 at the Wayback Machine. The Man Booker Prize.
- ^ Alter, Alexandra, "Paul Beatty Wins Man Booker Prize With 'The Sellout'", The New York Times, October 25, 2016. Retrieved October 25, 2016.
- ^ Masters, Tim (October 26, 2016). "Man Booker Prize: Paul Beatty becomes first US winner for The Sellout". BBC News.
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte (October 26, 2016). "Turned down 18 times. Then Paul Beatty won the Booker …". The Guardian.
- ^ Alter, Alexandra (March 17, 2016). "'The Sellout' Wins National Book Critics Circle's Fiction Award". The New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
External links
- Beatty, Paul, "Black Humor", The New York Times, January 22, 2006.
- African American Literature Book Club for Paul Beatty
- Excerpt from Slumberland at BookBrowse
- Interview at Full Stop, June 30, 2015.
- Gatti, Tom, "Paul Beatty: 'I invented a Richter scale for racism'", New Statesman, November 2, 2016.
- Oscar Villalon, "Paul Beatty on Los Angeles Lit, The Sellout, and Life After the Man Booker", Zyzzyva, June 4, 2018, via LitHub.