Long journey …

… Paul Beatty: from slam poet to Man Booker Prize. (Hat tip, G. E. Reutter.)

Beatty, 54, grew up in Los Angeles with his mother and two sisters. The figure of the absentee father – Beatty never knew his – is a recurring theme in his work. He moved to the opposite side of the country for his university education, spending seven years in Boston studying psychology, first as an undergrad, and then for a PhD which he eventually abandoned. By that time, he had begun writing, started to lose interest in teaching and had come to hate Boston.