Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at
the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and a staff writer and theater critic for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine. He is a former staff writer for ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'' and former editor-at-large at ''
Vibe'' magazine.
In June 2020, Als was named an inaugural Presidential Visiting Scholar at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
for the 2020–2021 academic year. At Princeton, he will teach "Yaass Queen: Gay Men, Straight Women, and the Literature, Art, and Film of Hagdom", a course offered by the Program in Theater, the Program in Creative Writing, and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Background and career
Hilton Als was born in New York City, with roots in
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estima ...
. Hilton was raised in
Brownsville, Brooklyn, he has four older sisters and one younger brother.
His 1996 book ''The Women'' focuses on his mother (who raised him in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
),
Dorothy Dean, and
Owen Dodson, who was a mentor and lover of Als.
In the book, Als explores his identification of the confluence of his ethnicity, gender and sexuality, moving from identifying as a "Negress" and then an "Auntie Man", a
Barbadian term for homosexuals.
His 2013 book ''
White Girls'' continued to explore race, gender, identity in a series of essays about everything from the
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...
epidemic to
Richard Pryor's life and work.
Als received a
Guggenheim fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
in 2000 for creative writing and the 2002–03
George Jean Nathan
George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely with H. L. Mencken, bringing the literary magazine ''The Smart Set'' to prominence as an editor, and co-founding and ...
Award for Dramatic Criticism. In 2004 he won the
Berlin Prize of the
American Academy in Berlin, which provided him half a year of free working and studying in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
.
In addition to Columbia, he has taught at
Smith College
Smith College is a private liberal arts women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. It is the largest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite women's coll ...
,
Wellesley College,
Wesleyan University, and
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
, and his work has also appeared in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'', ''
The Believer'', and the ''
New York Review of Books''.
In 2017, he was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
for Criticism: "For bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race."
As an art curator, Als has been responsible for exhibitions including the group show ''Forces in Nature'' (featuring work by such artists as
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Njideka Akunyili Crosby (born 1983) is a Nigerian-born visual artist working in Los Angeles, California. Through her art Akunyili Crosby "negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria, creating collag ...
,
Peter Doig
Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting ''White Canoe'' sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction r ...
,
Chris Ofili,
Celia Paul,
Tal R,
Sarah Sze,
Kara Walker, and
Francesca Woodman) in 2015, and most recently an exhibition of work from the
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
years of portraitist
Alice Neel
Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psyc ...
, entitled ''Alice Neel, Uptown'', at
David Zwirner Gallery in New York City and
Victoria Miro Gallery in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
(May 18 – July 29, 2017).
Awards and honors
*2013
National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism) shortlist for ''
White Girls''
*2016
Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (Nonfiction)
*2016
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
(Criticism)
*2018 Honorary Doctorate,
The New School
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
.
*In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ
Pride parade, ''
Queerty'' named him among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.
Bibliography
*
[Catalog of an exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, November 10, 1994 – March 5, 1995.]
*
*
*
*
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See also
*
LGBT culture in New York City
New York City is home to one of the largest LGBTQ populations in the world and the most prominent. Brian Silverman, the author of ''Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day,'' wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most power ...
*
List of LGBT writers
This list of LGBT writers includes writers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender or otherwise non-heterosexual who have written about LGBT themes, elements or about LGBT issues (such as Jonny Frank). Works of these authors are part of LG ...
*
List of LGBT people from New York City
New York City is home to one of the largest LGBT populations in the world and the most prominent. Brian Silverman, the author of ''Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day,'' writes that the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most ...
References
External links
Et Als (official site and blog)''New Yorker'' page''New York Review of Books'' archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Als, Hilton
1960 births
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
African-American non-fiction writers
American people of Barbadian descent
American theater critics
Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty
Date of birth missing (living people)
LGBT African Americans
LGBT people from New York (state)
American LGBT writers
Living people
The New Yorker critics
The New Yorker staff writers
The New Yorker people
Smith College faculty
Lambda Literary Award winners
The Village Voice people
Writers from Brooklyn
People from Brownsville, Brooklyn
20th-century African-American writers
21st-century African-American writers
American male non-fiction writers