Mat Johnson is an American writer of literary fiction.
Biography
Born and raised in the
GermantownGermantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...
and
Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaMount Airy is a neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania.-Boundaries:Mount Airy is bounded on the northwest by the Cresheim Valley, which is part of Fairmount Park. Beyond this lies Chestnut Hill. On the west side is the Wissahickon Gorge, which is also part of Fairmount...
, Johnson writes primarily about the lives of African-Americans, using fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels as mediums. In 2007, Johnson was named the first USA
James BaldwinJames Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
Fellow by the United States Artists Foundation. Mat Johnson lives in Houston, where he teaches at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
Mat Johnson’s first novel,
Drop (Bloomsbury USA in 2000), was a coming of age novel about a self-hating Philadelphian who thinks he’s found his escape when he takes a job at a
BrixtonBrixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
-based advertising agency in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK. The work was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, Interview Magazine named Johnson a “Writer on the Verge” and
Drop was listed among Progressive Magazine’s “Best Novels of the Year.”
In 2003, Johnson published
Hunting in Harlem (Bloomsbury USA 2003), a satire about gentrification in Harlem and an exploration of belief versus fanaticism.
Hunting in Harlem won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Novel of the Year.
Johnson made his first move into the
comicsComics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
form with the publication of the five-issue
limited seriesA limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
Hellblazer Special: Papa Midnite (Vertigo 2005), where he took an existing character of the
HellblazerHellblazer is a contemporary horror comic book series, originally published by DC Comics, and subsequently by the Vertigo imprint since March 1993, the month the imprint was introduced, where it remains to this day...
franchise and created an origin story that strove to offer depth and dignity to a character that was arguably a racial stereotype of the noble savage. The work was set in 18th Century Manhattan, and was based around the research that Johnson was conducting for his first historical effort,
The Great Negro Plot (Bloomsbury USA).
The Great Negro Plot is a creative non-fiction that tells the story of the
New York Slave Insurrection of 1741The Conspiracy of 1741, also known as the Negro Plot of 1741 or the Slave Insurrection of 1741, was a supposed plot by slaves and poor whites in the British colony of New York in 1741 to revolt and level New York City with a series of fires...
and the resultant trial and hysteria.
In February 2008, Vertigo Comics published Johnson's
graphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
IncognegroIncognegro is a black-and-white graphic novel written by Mat Johnson with art by Warren Pleece. It was published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo-Publication history:...
, a noir mystery that deals with the issue of
Passing (racial identity)Racial passing refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group attempting to be accepted as a member of a different racial group...
and the
lynchingLynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
past of the American south. The work is illustrated by British artist
Warren PleeceWarren Pleece is a British comics artist. He is best known for his work at the DC Comics imprint Vertigo.-Biography:With his brother Gary Pleece, he wrote and drew four issues of a self published comics magazine called Velocity between 1987 and 1989...
with cover artwork by Stephen John Phillips.
From 2006 to 2007, Mat Johnson wrote the blog
NiggeratiThe Niggerati was the name used, with deliberate irony, by Wallace Thurman for the group of young African American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. "Niggerati" is a portmanteau of "nigger" and "literati". The rooming house where he lived, and where that group often met, was...
Manor, which discussed
African American literatureAfrican-American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. The genre traces its origins to the works of such late 18th century writers as Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, reaching early high points with slave narratives and the Harlem...
and culture.
Mat Johnson attended West Chester University, University of Wales-Swansea, and ultimately received his BA from
Earlham CollegeEarlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
, and in 1993, he was awarded a
Thomas J. Watson FellowshipThe Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
. Johnson received his MFA from
Columbia University School of the ArtsThe Columbia University School of the Arts , also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the division of the university that offers Master of Fine Arts degrees in Film, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, and Writing, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies...
in 1999. Johnson has taught at
Rutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
,
Columbia UniversityColumbia 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...
,
Bard CollegeBard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
,
The Callaloo JournalCallaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially...
Writers Retreat, and is now a permanent faculty member at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
He was named a 2007 USA James Baldwin Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by
United States ArtistsUnited States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships...
, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists. On September 21, 2011, Mat Johnson was awarded the
Dos Passos PrizeThe John Dos Passos Prize is awarded annually to the best currently under-recognized American writer in the middle of their career.The Prize was founded at Longwood University in 1980 and is meant to honor John Dos Passos by recognizing other writers in his name...
for Literature.
Novels
- Drop (Bloomsbury USA, 2000)
- Hunting in Harlem (Bloomsbury USA, 2003)
- Pym
Pym is the third novel by American author Mat Johnson, published on March 1, 2011. A satirical fantasy inspired by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, the book explores racial politics and identity in America, and Antarctica...
(RandomRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
/Spiegel & Grau, 2011)
Comics
- Hellblazer
Hellblazer is a contemporary horror comic book series, originally published by DC Comics, and subsequently by the Vertigo imprint since March 1993, the month the imprint was introduced, where it remains to this day...
Special: Papa Midnite (Vertigo, 5-issue limited seriesA limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
, 2005; tpbIn comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
, 2006, ISBN 1401210031)
- Incognegro
Incognegro is a black-and-white graphic novel written by Mat Johnson with art by Warren Pleece. It was published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo-Publication history:...
(Vertigo, graphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
, 2008, hardcover, ISBN 140121097X)
Anthologies
- Gumbo: Anthology of African American Literature (Harlem Moon, 2002)
- Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience (W. W. Norton, 2006)
- Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice, and Life (Amistad Press, 2002)
External links
- Official website
- Mat Johnson on Twitter
- Literary Criticism of Hunting in Harlem
- Profile of Mat Johnson
- "'Great Negro Plot' Tells of Manhattan on the Edge", News and Notes, National Public Radio, February 7, 2007. (Links to RealPlayer
RealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
or Windows MediaWindows Media is a multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies, and is the replacement of NetShow technologies.The Windows Media SDK...
audio)
- "Rumors of a Slave Revolt", Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC
WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...
, February 28, 2007. (Links to MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
audio)
- Mat Johnson's United States Artist Page
- James Baldwin Foundation Fellows 2007
- United States Artists Arts Advocacy Organization.