Ishmael Reed Visits Cal State San Marcos

Novelist, anthologist, poet, playwright, publisher, and 1998 MacArthur Fellowship winner Ishmael Reed presented "Honoring Black History Month" February 15 in Arts 240.

Reed has been described as among the most creative and controversial of African American writers, and as a founding figure of American multiculturalism. Born in Chattanooga but raised in Buffalo, he began his career working for a Buffalo newspaper in 1960. His first novel, The Free-Lance Pallbearers, was published in 1967. He has won praise, and nominations for National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize, for his irreverent prose and literary experimentation. But he has been criticized for what some have called misogynistic opinions, for praising the black middle-class work ethic, and for satirizing what he saw as radical rhetoric.

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