Darryl Pinckney (born 1953 in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

) is an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

, and

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

Early life

Pinckney grew up in a middle-class African-American family in

, where he attended local public schools. He was educated at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in New York City.

Career

Some of Pinckney's first professional works were theatre texts, plays developed in collaboration with director Robert Wilson. These included the produced works of '' The Forest'' (1988) and ''

Orlando Orlando commonly refers to: * Orlando, Florida, a city in the United States Orlando may also refer to: People * Orlando (given name), a masculine name, includes a list of people with the name * Orlando (surname), includes a list of people wit ...

'' (1989). Pinckney returned to theatre with '' Time Rocker'' (1995). His first novel was ''High Cotton'' (1992), a semi-autobiographical novel about "growing up black and bourgeois" in 1960s America. His second novel was ''Black Deutschland'' (2016), about a young gay black man in Berlin in the late 1980s, just before the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. Pinckney has published several collections of essays covering topics such as African-American literature, politics, race, and other cultural issues. He is also a frequent contributor to the ''

New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

'', ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

'', ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'', and ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly 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 ...

''. He frequently explores issues of racial and sexual identities, as expressed in literature and society.

Awards

*1986, Whiting Award *1992, ''High Cotton'' won the ''Los Angeles Times''

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

. *1994, the Vursell Award for Distinguished Prose from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

*2022, His memoir ''Come Back in September'' was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award in autobiography. *2022, James Tait Black Prize for Biography for ''Come Back in September''

Personal life

Pinckney is gay and lives with his partner, English poet

James Fenton James Martin Fenton (born 25 April 1949) is an English poet, journalist and literary critic. He is a former Oxford Professor of Poetry. Life and career Born in Lincoln, Fenton grew up in Lincolnshire and Staffordshire, the son of Canon Jo ...

; the couple has been together since 1989. Pinckney currently lives in New York City, but previously lived with Fenton in

Oxfordshire, England Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Gloucestershi ...

Bibliography

Books

* '' High Cotton'' (novel; 1992) * '' Sold and Gone: African American Literature and U.S. Society'' (2001) * '' Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature'' (2002) * '' Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy'' (2014) * ''Black Deutschland'' (2016) * ''Busted in New York and Other Essays'' (2019; Foreword by

Zadie Smith Zadie Smith (born Sadie; 25 October 1975) is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, ''White Teeth'' (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She became a tenured professor in the ...

) * ''Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan'' (2022)

Selected essays

* (Subscription Required) * * * * * *

Theatre texts

*(Collaborations with Robert Wilson) ** '' The Forest'' (1988) ** ''

'' (1989) ** '' Time Rocker'' (1995) ** '' Garrincha - a street opera'' (2016) ** '' Mary Said What She Said'' (2019) ** '' Dorian'' (2022) ** '' Pessoa: since I've been me'' (2024)

References

External links

Darryl Pinckney websiteDarryl Pinckney at the ''New York Review of Books''Profile at The Whiting Foundation
1953 births 20th-century African-American writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 21st-century African-American writers 21st-century American essayists 21st-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists African-American LGBTQ people African-American male writers African-American novelists American Book Award winners American gay writers American LGBTQ novelists Columbia College (New York) alumni Living people Novelists from Indiana Writers from Indianapolis {{AfricanAmerican-stub