Author Paul Beatty Visits Hopkins

Renowned author Paul Beatty visited Hopkins on April 21 & 22, 2024 to share passages of his prose and poetry and meet with members of the Hopkins community. 

On the evening of Sunday, April 21, Beatty treated attendees from the Hopkins and New Haven communities to readings in the Calarco Library. The following morning, during an all-school assembly, Beatty read an excerpt from the first chapter of his acclaimed book, The Sellout. 

The Sellout is a story about a modern-day slave owner in Los Angeles. Beatty is frank about the book’s uncomfortable topic, and says the discomfort shown in the book is an integral part of the narrative. “I wanted to see if I could make myself flinch. It’s about embracing the profoundly profane, the absurd. Because the stuff that’s most inappropriate is oftentimes the most necessary and the most beautiful,” Beatty remarked about the novel during his visit to Hopkins. In 2016, The Sellout won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, marking Beatty as the first American writer to receive this award.  

Students across several Hopkins English classes are currently exploring Beatty’s prose and poetry this spring. Following the assembly, Beatty engaged in Q&A sessions with students and faculty in the lower level of the library, and later enjoyed lunch with the Hopkins English faculty. 

When he's not writing award-winning books, Beatty serves as a professor of writing at Columbia University. 

Photos from the Sunday evening event are included at the top of the article. 
Click here to view more pictures from Beatty's Sunday evening visit.

Photos of Beatty's Monday morning visit: