Welcome to Ishmael Reed's Site

"Reed believes that the capricious tastes of white readers have made Black literature appear to be a revolving door of transient starts... 'Anti-racism,' he said, is 'the new yoga.' Even the diversification of major media outlets leaves him cold... he lives the strange double life as a canonical author of the twentieth century and an underground voice of the twenty-first." —New Yorker profile by Julian Lucas, 07/26/21

Ishmael Reed is the winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (genius award), the renowned L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer and finalist for two National Book Awards; honored as Distinguished Professor Emeritus awardee of the year 2020 by the University of California at Berkeley; and is founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, which promotes multicultural American writing. The American Book Awards, sponsored by the foundation has been called The American League to the National Book Awards’ National League. He also founded PEN Oakland which issues the Josephine Miles Literary Awards. PEN Oakland has been called “The Blue Collar PEN” by The New York Times.

Ishmael Reed is the author of more than thirty titles including the acclaimed novel Mumbo Jumbo, as well as non-fiction, plays and poetry. His other novels include: The Freelance Pallbearers; Yellow Back Radio Broke Down; Flight To Canada; The Last Days Of Louisiana Red; Reckless Eyeballing; The Terrible Twos; The Terrible Threes; The Terrible Fours; Japanese By Spring; Juice!; and Conjugating Hindi.

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“Great,” James Baldwin

“Great,” Sam Tanenhaus, The New York Times

“Great,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic Wire

A “modern-day Moliere.” Backstage