Paul Beatty

Paul Beatty
Born	1962 (age 53–54) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Author, poet
Genre	Fiction, poetry

Paul Beatty (born 1962 in Los Angeles) is a contemporary American author. Beatty received an MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College and an MA in psychology from Boston University. He is a 1980 graduate of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California.

In 1990, Paul Beatty was crowned the first ever Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.^[1] One of the prizes for winning that championship title was the book deal which resulted in his first volume of poetry, Big Bank Takes Little Bank.^[2] This was followed by another book of poetry Joker, Joker, Deuce and appearances performing his poetry on MTV and PBS (in the series The United States of Poetry).^[3] In 1993, he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

His first novel, The White Boy Shuffle, 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."^[4] His second book, Tuff, received a positive notice in Time Magazine.^[5] 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.^[6] His 2008 novel Slumberland was about an American DJ in Berlin. 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.

Awards and honors

• 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction), winner for The Sellout.^[7]

Novels

• The White Boy Shuffle (1996) ISBN 0-312-28019-X
• Tuff (2000) Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0-375-40122-9
• Slumberland (2008)
• The Sellout (2015)

Edited volume

• Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (2006)

Poetry

• Big Bank Take Little Bank (1991) ISBN 0-9627842-7-3
• Joker, Joker, Deuce (1994) ISBN 0-14-058723-3

References

1. 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. Page 45. ISBN 1-933368-82-9.
2. Aptowicz, Page 46.
3. Aptowicz, Page 80.
4. "Black Poet's First Novel Aims the Jokes Both Ways", The New York Times 31 May 1996.
5. "Tuff", Time Magazine 1 May 2000.
6. "Black Humor", The New York Times 22 January 2006.
7. Alexandra Alter (March 17, 2016). "‘The Sellout’ Wins National Book Critics Circle’s Fiction Award". New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2016.

External links

• Article in NY Times by Paul Beatty
• NY TImes review of Paul Beatty's first novel, The White Boy Shuffle
• African American Literature Book Club for Paul Beatty
• Excerpt from Slumberland at BookBrowse
• Interview at Full Stop