Paul Beatty is a contemporary African-American author born on June 9, 1962, in Los Angeles. He is an esteemed professor of writing at Columbia University. In 2016, Beatty achieved significant acclaim by winning the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout. This victory marked the first time a writer from the United States received the Man Booker Prize.

Beatty's educational background includes an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College and an MA in Psychology from Boston University. He graduated in 1980 from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California.

In 1990, Beatty gained recognition as the first-ever Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. This achievement led to a book deal resulting in his first volume of poetry, Big Bank Takes Little Bank. Following this, he published another poetry book, Joker, Joker, Deuce, and made appearances performing his poetry on MTV and PBS in the series The United States of Poetry. In 1993, he was awarded a grant from the Foundation.