Paul Beatty facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Paul Beatty
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Beatty in 2016
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| Born | June 9, 1962 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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| Genre | Fiction, poetry |
| Years active | 1990s–present |
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| Notable awards |
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Paul Beatty (born June 9, 1962) is an American writer. He is also a professor at Columbia University. In 2016, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He also won the Booker Prize for his book The Sellout. He was the first American writer to win the Booker Prize.
Contents
About Paul Beatty's Early Life and School
Paul Beatty was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1962. He finished high school in 1980. He went on to earn two master's degrees. One was in creative writing from Brooklyn College. The other was in psychology from Boston University.
Paul Beatty's Writing Career
In 1990, Paul Beatty became the first Grand Poetry Slam Champion. This event was held at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Winning this contest helped him get a book deal. This led to his first poetry book, Big Bank Take Little Bank (1991).
He then released another poetry book called Joker, Joker, Deuce (1994). He also performed his poetry on TV shows. These included MTV and the PBS series The United States of Poetry. In 1993, he received an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
His First Novels
Beatty's first novel was The White Boy Shuffle (1996). A reviewer from The New York Times praised it. They called it "a blast of satirical heat." This means it was a very funny and sharp story.
His second novel, Tuff (2000), also got good reviews. Time magazine said it was "like an extended rap song." The characters in the book talked about their struggles and how they survived.
In 2006, Beatty put together a collection of African-American humor. It was called Hokum. He also wrote an article about humor for The New York Times. His 2008 novel, Slumberland, was about an American DJ. This DJ lived in Berlin. A reviewer said Beatty's writing was "shockingly original" and "very funny."
The Sellout and Major Awards
In 2015, Paul Beatty released his novel The Sellout. This book tells the story of a farmer in a made-up Los Angeles neighborhood. The farmer tries to bring back slavery and segregation. This is a form of satire, which means it uses humor, irony, or extreme ideas to make a point about society.
Reviewers loved The Sellout. One reviewer called it "a masterful work." They said it showed Beatty was "the funniest writer in America." Another called it a "whirlwind of a satire." They noted that the story was both believable and very surprising. It took Beatty more than five years to write this book.
The Sellout won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. It also won the 2016 Man Booker Prize. Paul Beatty was the first American writer to win the Man Booker Prize. This award became open to all English-language novels in 2014.
Awards and Honors
- 2009: Creative Capital Award for Slumberland
- 2015: National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction), winner for The Sellout
- 2016: Booker Prize winner for The Sellout
- 2017: International Dublin Literary Award long-list for The Sellout
Works by Paul Beatty
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
- The White Boy Shuffle (1996). ISBN: 0-312-28019-X
- Tuff (2000). Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN: 0-375-40122-9
- Slumberland (2008). Bloomsbury USA, ISBN: 978-1596912410
- The Sellout (2015). New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. London: Oneworld Publications, 2016. ISBN: 978-1786071477 (hardback), 978-1786070159 (paperback)
Edited Volume
- Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (2006). Bloomsbury USA. ISBN: 978-1596911482
See also
In Spanish: Paul Beatty para niños
