James McBride

James McBride was born and raised in New York City. His father, an African American, died of cancer just before McBride was born, and so his mother, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, raised him. When he was born, McBride was one of eight children, and when his mother remarried, he became one of twelve. McBride grew up in the Red Hook housing projects of Brooklyn, and his experience has influenced much of his writing, including Deacon King Kong (2020). In the mid-1970s, McBride  Oberlin College, where he received his bachelor’s degree. He then immediately earned a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University, which he received in 1980. McBride’s writing career took off in 1995 after the publication of his autobiography and memoir titled The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother. The book details McBride’s upbringing in New York and received critical acclaim for its reflections on race in America. It is now considered a classic in the genre. McBride’s next book was a novel, Miracle at St. Anna (2002), which tells the story of four African American soldiers fighting on the Italian front in WWII; Spike Lee later directed a film adaption of the novel. McBride’s greatest achievement in fiction didn’t come until 2013 with the publication of The Good Lord Bird, which won the National Book Award in 2013. Later, in 2020, Ethan Hawke and Jason Blum adapted it for television. McBride has also published two other works of fiction, Song Yet Sung (2008) and Five-Carat Soul (2017). He has also written a work of experimental non-fiction—Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul (2016). Currently, McBride is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.