Paul Beatty was on Tuesday named as the first American to win the prestigious Man Booker fiction prize for The Sellout, a biting satire on race relations in the United States.
Chair of the five judges for the 50,000 pound ($60,900) prize Amanda Foreman said The Sellout had been a unanimous choice, reached after a meeting lasting some four hours.
“It plunges into the heart of contemporary American society with absolutely savage wit of the kind I haven’t seen since Swift or Twain,” she said.
“It manages to eviscerate every social nuance, every sacred cow, while making us laugh and also making us wince ... It is really a novel for our times.”
“The Sellout tells the story of an African-American, “Bonbon”, who tries to put his Californian town back on the map, from which it has been officially removed, by re-introducing slavery and segregation in the local high school. The 289-page novel begins with “Bonbon” facing a hearing in the Supreme Court, looking back over the events that led up to that point.
“Paul Beatty has said being offended is not an emotion. That's his answer to the reader,” Foreman said.
“This really is a genuine first-class piece of serious literature wrapped up in a shawl of humour,” she added.
The Sellout is 54-year-old Beatty's fourth novel. He has also edited an anthology of African-American humour.
(This article has been published in an arrangement with Reuters and has been cut for length.)
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