About the Author

Paul Beatty is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle--and the books of poetry: Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce. He is the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. In 2016, he became the first American to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout. In 2017, he was the winner the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

"The first 100 pages of [Paul Beatty's] new novel, The Sellout, are the most caustic and the most badass first 100 pages of an American novel I've read in at least a decade." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times "[The Sellout] is among the most important and difficult American novels written in the 21st century . . . It is a bruising novel that readers will likely never forget." --Kiese Laymon, Los Angeles Times "Swiftian satire of the highest order . . . Giddy, scathing and dazzling." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "The Sellout isn't just one of the most hilarious American novels in years, it also might be the first truly great satirical novel of the century . . . [It] is a comic masterpiece, but it's much more than just that-it's one of the smartest and most honest reflections on race and identity in America in a very long time." --Michael Schaub, NPR.org "Beatty, author of the deservedly highly praised The White Boy Shuffle (1996), here outdoes himself and possibly everybody else in a send-up of race, popular culture, and politics in today's America . . . Beatty hits on all cylinders in a darkly funny, dead-on-target, elegantly written satire . . . [The Sellout] is frequently laugh-out-loud funny and, in the way of the great ones, profoundly thought provoking. A major contribution." --Mark Levin, Booklist (starred review) "The Sellout is brilliant. Amazing. Like demented angels wrote it." --Sarah Silverman "I am glad that I read this insane book alone, with no one watching, because I fell apart with envy, hysterics, and flat-out awe. Is there a more fiercely brilliant and scathingly hilarious American novelist than Paul Beatty?" --Ben Marcus "Paul Beatty has always been one of smartest, funniest, gutsiest writers in America, but The Sellout sets a new standard. It's a spectacular explosion of comic daring, cultural provocation, brilliant, hilarious prose, and genuine heart." --Sam Lipsyte