The Sellout

Paul Beatty’s biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality - the black Chinese restaurant.

The son of a pioneering sociologist believes that selling his father’s controversial memoir will solve the family’s financial woes. But when he realises there never was a memoir, drastic action is required… The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality - the black Chinese restaurant.

"...[a] howl-a-page assault on the pieties of race debates in America ... [an] outrageous, hilarious and profound novel ... No writer since Tom Wolfe in his Bonfire of the Vanities years has such an eye for social farce ... Beatty plays for very high stakes — but he wins ... [a] beautiful and weirdly poignant book."   -  Simon Schama, The Financial Times

Paul Beatty is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, The White Boy Shuffle and The Sellout, which won the Booker Prize in 2016.  He is also the author of two books of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce, and is the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. He lives in New York City.