Life

He graduated from Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

, Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 with an MFA, and University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 with a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Film Studies.
He teaches African American studies and drama at the University of California, Irvine

University of California, Irvine

The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...

.

He has worked as an dramaturge

Dramaturge

A dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...

 for Lincoln Center Theater’s productions of Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...

 and Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

’s Mule Bone and Mbongeni Ngema

Mbongeni Ngema

Mbongeni Ngema a South African writer, lyricist, composer and director was born in Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal . He started his career as a theatre backing guitarist.He is married to actress Leleti Khumalo...

’s Township Fever; and for the Market Theater in Johannesburg’s production of George C. Wolfe

George C. Wolfe

George Costello Wolfe is an American playwright and director of theater and film. He won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and another Tony Award in 1996 for his direction of the musical, Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk.-Early life and...

’s The Colored Museum.

In the 1990s, he lived in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, teaching at University of Witwatersrand, was one of two Americans elected to the African National Congress

African National Congress

The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

 and was a member of Umkhonto We Sizwe

Umkhonto we Sizwe

Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...

.

His work has appeared in Social Identities; Social Justice, Les Temps Modernes, Konch, Callaloo Obsidian II, Paris Transcontinental.

He is directed the film Reparations…...Now.

Awards

• The Eisner Prize for Creative Achievement of the Highest Order
• The Judith Stronach Award for Poetry
• The Crothers Short Story Award
• The Jerome Foundation Artists and Writers Award
• The Loft-McKnight Award for Best Prose in the State of Minnesota
• The Maya Angelou Award for Best Fiction Portraying the Black Experience in America.
• 2008 American Book Award
  American Book Award
  The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
  
  , for Incognegro

Works

• Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms (Duke University Press).