Paul Beatty Livres

A detective story set in Britain in the 1840s

The electrifying debut novel from 2016 Man Booker Prize winner Paul Beatty

Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens, the narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. Raised by a single father, a sociologist, he is told that his father's work will lead to a memoir that will solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed, he realises there never was a memoir. Fueled by this deceit, the narrator initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery, which lands him in front of the Supreme Court.

As fast-paced and hard-edged as the Harlem streets it portrays, Tuff shows off all of the amazing skill that Paul Beatty showed off in his first novel, The White Boy Shuffle.Weighing in at 320 pounds, Winston “Tuffy” Foshay, is an East Harlem denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs and dreams of millions from his idea Cap’n Crunch: The Movie, starring Danny DeVito. His best friend is a disabled Muslim who wants to rob banks, his guiding light is an ex-hippie Asian woman who worked for Malcolm X, and his wife, Yolanda, he married from jail over the phone. Shrewdly comical as this dazzling novel is, it turns acerbically sublime when the frustrated Tuffy agrees to run for City Council. Smartly irreverent and edgily fierce, Tuff is a bona fide original.

Ninteen year-old winston 'Tuffy' Foshay - 320 pounds, new father to a baby boy he greets cheerfully with 'What up little nigger?', player-king of a motley crew in Spanish Harlem - is looking for a purpose in life, for the answer to his wife Yolanda's question, 'Winston, what you gonna do?' After narrowly escaping death - by fainting - in a drug deal gone bad, Tuff knows he needs to make some decisions, and soon, with or without the help of his tight Harlem circle - his scheming, disabled best friend Fariq, aka Smush; his Beat-poet Black Panther father, Clifford; Inez, the Marxist revolutionary who raised him, and his bewildered mentor from the Big Brother programme, the hapless African-American Rabbi, Specer Jefferson. So when Inez offers him $20, 000 to run for city council, he gamely embarks on one of the most outrageous campaigns in political history, one that changes both his vision of the world and his place in it. Fuelled by the ferocious wit and courage that made his debut one of the most talked about and passionately reviewed of the season, Tuff see Beatty's manic energy taken to new heights of verbal dazzle.

Paul Beatty präsentiert in seinem ersten Roman die Geschichte von Gunnar Kaufman, einem schwarzen Jungen, der in einem weißen Umfeld aufwächst und mit Identitätsproblemen kämpft. Der satirische Entwicklungsroman erzählt, wie Gunnar als Dichter und Basketballspieler Erfolg hat und afroamerikanische Geschichte neu definiert, untermalt von verschiedenen Musikstilen.

Gunnar Kaufman, ein etwas linkischer schwarzer Jugendlicher, zieht mit seiner Familie vom schicken und multikulturellen Santa Monica nach Hillside, einem schwarzen Vorort von Los Angeles. Schlimmer konnte es nicht kommen, denn Gunnar liest Kant, Hegel und Homer, tanzt wie ein Weißer und hat von den Ghettoregeln keine Ahnung. Wie Gunnar dennoch den Durchbruch zum Dichter, Basketballstar und schließlich Erlöser der gesamten afroamerikanischen Kultur schafft - das erzählt Paul Beatty frech, virtuos und in schnellen, wechselnden Rhythmen. „Schlechter tanzen“ ist ein abgründig komischer Entwicklungsroman und Kultbuch einer Generation.

Ein Berlin-Roman, wie es noch keinen gibt: DJ Darky kommt aus New York in die deutsche Hauptstadt, um einen abgetauchten Jazzer aufzuspüren. Es ist die Zeit des Mauerfalls, in der plötzlich alles möglich scheint. In der Bar „Slumberland“, wo DJ Darky sich als „Jukebox-Sommelier“ verdingt, entdeckt er seine sexuelle Macht, den Musikgeschmack von Neonazis und das Leben der Ostdeutschen, das ihn zusehends an das Leben der Afroamerikaner im amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg erinnert... Virtuos spielt Paul Beatty mit den Verhältnissen zwischen den Geschlechtern, zwischen Schwarz und Weiß, Ost und West, Jazz und Techno und mischt daraus einen aufregenden neuen Sound.