Paul Beatty

Paul Beatty was born in Los Angeles and moved to the East Coast for higher education, graduating with an MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College and an MA in Psychology from Boston University. In 1990 he was named Grand Poetry Slam Champion at the Nuyorican Poets Café, which helped him to secure his first book deal. In addition to The Sellout, he is the author of Tuff, Slumberland, and The White Boy Shuffle, along with two collections of poetry. The Sellout was the first book by a non-Commonwealth author to win the Man Booker Prize after the rules for eligibility were amended; it also received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Beatty lives in New York City with his wife, Althea Amrik Wasow, to whom The Sellout is dedicated.