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Paul Beatty

Paul Beatty
Beatty in 2016
Beatty in 2016
Born (1962-06-09) June 9, 1962 (age 63)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education
GenreFiction, poetry
Years active1990s–present
Notable works
Notable awards
SpouseAlthea Wasow

Paul Beatty (born June 9, 1962) is an American author and 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

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Paul Beatty was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1962. He grew up in West Los Angeles.[2] He was raised by a single mother and did not have a relationship with his father.[3] When he was younger, he was influenced by comedian Richard Pryor,[3] and writers Joseph Heller[4] and Kurt Vonnegut.[3][4] In 1980, he graduated from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California. He went to Boston University for undergraduate and graduate schools, and received an MA degree in psychology in 1987.[5] He later received an MFA degree in creative writing from Brooklyn College.[3]

Career

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In 1990, Beatty was crowned the first ever Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.[6] One of the prizes for winning the championship title was the book deal that resulted in his first volume of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank (1991).[7] This was followed by another book of poetry, Joker, Joker, Deuce (1994), and appearances performing his poetry on MTV and PBS (in the series The United States of Poetry).[8] In 1993, he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.[9]

In 1996, he lived in Berlin, Germany,[3] the same year that his first novel, The White Boy Shuffle, was published. White Boy Shuffle received a positive review from Richard Bernstein in The New York Times who called the book "a blast of satirical heat from the talented heart of Black American life."[10] 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."[11] 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.[12] 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."[13]

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",[14] 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."[15] The book took more than five years to complete.[16]

The Sellout was awarded the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction,[17][18] and the 2016 Man Booker Prize.[19][20] Beatty is the first American to have won the Man Booker Prize, for which all English-language novels became eligible in 2014.[21][22]

Beatty is a professor at Columbia University[1] and has taught "Literature from Los Angeles" as part of the MFA writing program.[23]

Personal

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Beatty is married to filmmaker Althea Wasow,[24] sister of BlackPlanet co-founder Omar Wasow.[25]

Awards and honors

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Works

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Poetry

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  • 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

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Edited volume

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  • Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (2006). Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1596911482

References

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  1. ^ a b Paul Beatty. Professor, Writing. Teaching Spring 2025. Columbia University. Retrieved April 23, 2025.
  2. ^ Sylvanise, Frédéric and Paul Beatty (July 17, 2013). An Interview with Paul Beatty, Transatlantica, 2 | 2013, mis en ligne le 12 avril 2014, consulté le 23 avril 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/6709 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.6709.
  3. ^ a b c d e Shavers, Rone (Summer 2000). Interview: Paul Beatty. BOMB Magazine. Retrieved April 23, 2025.
  4. ^ a b Jackson, Chris (May 7, 2015). Our Thing: An Interview with Paul Beatty. The Paris Review. Retrieved April 23, 2025.
  5. ^ PBS Alum Paul Beatty Wins Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Boston University Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. Retrieved April 23, 2025.
  6. ^ Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe (2008), Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. Soft Skull Press, p. 45. ISBN 1-933368-82-9.
  7. ^ Aptowicz, p. 46.
  8. ^ Aptowicz, p. 80.
  9. ^ "Grants to artists, Poetry 1993 | Paul Beatty", Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
  10. ^ a b Bernstein, Richard (May 31, 1996). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Black Poet's First Novel Aims the Jokes Both Ways". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  11. ^ Philadelphia, Desa, "Books: Tuff By Paul Beatty", Time Magazine, May 1, 2000.
  12. ^ Beatty, Paul (January 22, 2006). "Black Humor". The New York Times.
  13. ^ Neate, Patrick (December 6, 2008). "Jukebox sommelier". The Guardian'.
  14. ^ Donnelly, Elisabeth (March 10, 2015). "Paul Beatty on writing, humor and race: 'There are very few books that are funny'". The Guardian.
  15. ^ Eddo-Lodge, Reni (May 11, 2016). "The Sellout by Paul Beatty review – a whirlwind satire about racial identity". The Guardian.
  16. ^ "A Swiftian hero", The Economist, October 29, 2016. Article withdrawn for similarities with other articles, with apology.
  17. ^ "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.
  18. ^ Sandhu, Sukhdev (June 24, 2016). "Paul Beatty: 'Slam poetry, TED talks: they're for short attention spans'". The Guardian.
  19. ^ "Sellout Wins 2016 Man Booker Prize" Archived October 28, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. The Man Booker Prize.
  20. ^ Alter, Alexandra (October 25, 2016). "Paul Beatty Wins Man Booker Prize With 'The Sellout'". The New York Times. Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  21. ^ Masters, Tim (October 26, 2016). "Man Booker Prize: Paul Beatty becomes first US winner for The Sellout". BBC News.
  22. ^ Higgins, Charlotte (October 26, 2016). "Turned down 18 times. Then Paul Beatty won the Booker …". The Guardian.
  23. ^ Villalon, Oscar and Paul Beatty (June 4, 2018). Paul Beatty on Los Angeles Lit, The Sellout, and Life After the Man Booker: In Conversation with Oscar Villalon. Lit Hub. Retrieved April 23, 2025.
  24. ^ Millen, Robbie (October 25, 2016). "I'm not advocating segregation I'm having fun pondering it". The Times.
  25. ^ "Bio". Archived from the original on 2023-10-29. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
  26. ^ Alter, Alexandra (March 17, 2016). "'The Sellout' Wins National Book Critics Circle's Fiction Award". The New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
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