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Since 1981, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded an yearly fellowship successful the signifier of a currency prize to betwixt 20 and 30 people. MacArthur fellows tin enactment successful immoderate tract and indispensable beryllium United States citizens. There is nary exertion process, though recommendations tin beryllium made to the instauration anonymously and, aft being reviewed by a committee that is besides anonymous, last recommendations are presented to the board. Fellows are notified by telephone call, which is genuinely the lone bully crushed I tin deliberation of to reply the phone. The prize money, besides known arsenic a “genius grant,” is presently $800,000 (a caller summation from $625,000; antecedently $500,000) and is distributed quarterly implicit 5 years; determination are perfectly nary strings attached.
The MacArthur Foundation is based successful Chicago and has an endowment of $7 billion, making it the 12th largest backstage instauration successful the U.S. The instauration gives astir $260 cardinal yearly to assorted causes, including originative endeavors specified arsenic the fellowship, planetary issues including clime alteration and atomic threats, and much section issues specified arsenic reducing situation populations.
John D. MacArthur was a affluent businessman who acceptable up the instauration astatine slightest successful portion arsenic a mode to debar paying taxes. He near 92% of his $1 cardinal luck to the instauration upon his decease successful 1978, but declined to dictate however they should usage it. His volition did stipulate that his eldest son, J. Roderick MacArthur (from a erstwhile marriage) beryllium connected the committee of directors; Roderick pushed the committee successful a philanthropic direction, suing doubly for mismanagement. In 1981, the fellowship programme was established.
As mightiness beryllium expected from a programme that rewards “extraordinary originality and dedication successful their originative pursuits and a marked capableness for self-direction,” galore writers person been MacArthur fellows. The 2022 fellows are nary exception, with 4 phenomenal writers included successful the group.
P. Gabrielle Foreman
A literate historiographer and Professor of American Literature and African American Studies and History astatine Penn State, Foreman’s enactment focuses connected recovering aboriginal traditions of African American activism. She wrote Activist Sentiments: Reading Black Women successful the Nineteenth Century.
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Robin Wall Kimmerer
Book Riot favourite Kimmerer is an enrolled subordinate of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the laminitis and manager of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She’s besides the writer of Braiding Sweetgrass.
Joseph Drew Lanham
Ornithologist and naturalist Lanham is successful the Forestry and Environmental Conservation Department astatine Clemson University successful South Carolina, his enactment focuses chiefly connected “combining conservation subject with personal, historical, and taste narratives of nature.” He wrote The Home Place.
Kiese Laymon
The fellows awarded successful 2021 are each spot arsenic exciting, with adjacent much writers and different literate radical included.
Daniel Alarcón
Alarcón is simply a Peruvian-American writer and novelist, the big of NPR’s Radio Ambulante, and an adjunct prof of broadcast journalism astatine the Columbia University Journalism School. His New Yorker communicative “City of Clowns” was made into a abbreviated movie successful Peru.
Hanif Abdurraquib
Poet and essayist Abdurraqib has written astir everything from Columbus, Ohio, to A Tribe Called Quest. A five-year day variation of his effort postulation They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us was released successful November 2022 with further worldly and an audiobook mentation recorded by Abdurraqib.
Reginald Dwayne Betts
Betts spent 9 years successful situation for a carjacking helium participated successful arsenic a teenager; portion incarcerated, helium work The Black Poets by Dudley Randall and began penning his ain poetry. After his release, helium earned an MFA successful originative penning from Warren Wilson Collage and a JD from Yale. He was connected President Obama’s Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and founded Freedom Reads, bringing books to situation populations. He has published respective collections of poesy and a memoir, A Question of Freedom. He relayed the communicative of getting the call from the MacArthur instauration successful The Washington Post.
Don Mee Choi
Choi is simply a Korean American writer and translator of different Korean women’s poetry. She lives successful Germany and her astir caller publication is DMZ Colony.
Ibram X. Kendi
A historiographer of contention and discriminatory argumentation successful America, Kendi is the manager of the Center for Antiracist Research astatine Boston University. Previously, helium was a prof of past and planetary relations astatine American University successful Washington, D.C., an adjunct prof successful the University of Florida past department’s African American Studies program, a visiting student successful the section of Africana Studies astatine Brown University, an adjunct prof of Africana Studies astatine SUNY Albany, and an adjunct prof of past successful the section of Africana and Latino Studies astatine SUNY Oneonta. His books How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped From the Beginning have been adapted for each ages.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
It would marque for acold excessively agelong an nonfiction to sermon each literate chap from the erstwhile 40 years of MacArthur grants, but I person compiled a database of each 1 I was capable to identify. The afloat database is, of course, connected the MacArthur Foundation website. I find it peculiarly absorbing to ticker the database of fellows alteration from a mostly white, mostly antheral radical to a vibrantly divers radical implicit the years.
In 1981, the inaugural radical of fellows included poets A.R. Ammons and Joseph Brodsky, literate critics Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Robert Penn Warren, essayists Richard Critchfield and James A. McPherson, playwright Derek Walcott, and novelists Cormac McCarthy and Leslie Marmon Silko.
In 1982, the database included writers Ved Mehta and William Gaddis and linguist Michael Silverstein.
In 1983, screenwriter John Sayles joined novelist William Kennedy, writer Brad Leithauser, literate student and prof of linguistics A.K. Ramanujan, and publication historian, designer, and printer Adrian Wilson.
In 1984, poets Robert Hass, who would spell connected to beryllium the United States Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997, and Galway Kinnell were joined by literate professional Bette Howland, novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath, and translator Charles Simic.
In 1985, writer John Ashbery and professional Harold Bloom were honored.
1986 fellows included writer and translator Daryl Hine, writer Thomas Whiteside, and playwright and writer Jay Wright.
The 1987 radical included poets Douglas Crase, Richard Kenney, Mark Strand, and May Swenson; literate professional Irving Howe; writer Walter Abish; writer Tina Rosenberg; and translator and exertion Huynh Sanh Thông.
1988 awarded writer Andrew Dubus, novelist Thomas Pynchon, and linguist Getatchew Haile.
In 1989, fellowships were awarded to writer Allen Grossman, writer Keith Hefner, and writers Jay Cantor, Richard Powers, and Vivian Gussin Paley, who was besides a kindergarten teacher.
1990’s database includes writer Jorie Graham, writer and literate professional John Hollander, professional Marc Shell, and writers Guy Davenport, Patricia Hampl, Gary Paul Nabhan, and Susan Sontag.
In 1991 the cohort included writer Paul Berman, poets Alive Fulton and Eleanor Wilner, and writers Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Lewis Hyde.
1992 included poets Amy Clampitt and Irving Feldman, journalists Robert H. Hall and Michael Massing, and writers Norman Manea, Paule Marshall, Joanna Scott, and John T. Scott.
1993 fellows included writer and professional Stanley Crouch, writer and professional Thom Gunn, writer and professional Ann Lauterbach, writer and translator Jim Powell, writer William Siemering, and writers Ernest Gaines and John Edgar Wideman.
1994’s fellows were writers Donella H. Meadows and Adrienne Rich.
1995 awarded journalists Sandy Close and Alma Guillermoprieto and writers Octavia E. Butler, Sandra Cisneros, and Virginia Hamilton.
The 1996 fellows included playwrights John Jesurun and Anna Deavere Smith, writer Thylias Moss, writer Rebecca Goldstein, and poet, translator, and literate professional Richard Howard.
In 1997, fellowships were awarded to playwrights Lee Breuer and Han Ong, literate student and writer Susan Stewart, and writers Luis Alfaro and David Foster Wallace.
1998 included poets Linda Bierds and Edward Hirsch, writer Charles Lewis, playwright Mary A. Zimmerman, linguistic anthropologist Elinor R. Ochs, writer Charles R. Johnson, and poet, essayist, and novelist Ishmael Scott Reed.
1999 awarded writer Mark Danner, writer Campbell McGrath, playwright Naomi Wallace, anthropological linguist Dennis A. Moore, classicist Leslie V. Kurke, and linguist Ofelia Zepeda.
In 2000 the fellows included poets Anne Carson and Lucia M. Perillo, graphic novelist Ben Katchor, and literate student Laura Otis.
In 2001 fellows included writer Andrea Barrett, classicist and papyrologist Dirk Obbink, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and biographer Jean Strouse.
2002 included writer Karen Boo, linguist Daniel Jurafsky, biblical student Jack Miles, and writers Karen S. Hesse and Colson Whitehead.
2003 fellows included writer Angela Johnson and writer and translator Lydia Davis.
In 2004, fellowships were awarded to writer C.D. Wright and writers Edward P. Jones and Aleksandar Hemon.
The 2005 radical included novelist Jonathan Lethem and uncommon publication preservationist Terry Belanger.
2006 was a larger group, including naturalist author/illustrator David Carroll, writer Adrian LeBlanc, playwright Sarah Ruhl, writer and surgeon Atul Gawande, author-illustrator David Macaulay, and writer George Saunders.
2007 included playwright Lynn Nottage, translator and writer Peter Cole, and writer Stuart Dybek.
In 2008, the sole literate recipient of the grant was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
2009 included papermaker Timothy Barrett, writer Heather McHugh, investigative writer Jerry Mitchell, and writers Deborah Eisenberg and Edwidge Danticat.
2010 fellows included Wampanoag connection preservationist Jessie Little Doe Baird, benignant decorator Matthew Carter, motion connection linguist Carol Padden, and writers David Simon and Yiyun Li.
In 2011, fellowships were awarded to writer Peter Hessler and poets Kay Ryan and A.E. Stallings.
2012 fellows included writer David Finkel and writers Dinaw Mengestu and Junot Diaz.
In 2013, the fellows included playwright Tarell McCraney and writers Donald Antrim and Karen Russell.
The 2014 cohort included cartoonist and writer Alison Bechdel, writer Terrance Hayes, writer and translator Khaled Mattawa, and playwright Samuel D. Hunter.
2015 awards went to writer Ellen Bryant Voigt, playwright and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer Ben Lerner, and writer and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.
In 2016, the fellows included linguist and taste preserver Daryl Baldwin, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, writer Claudia Rankine, writer Sarah Stillman, graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, and writers Maggie Nelson and Lauren Redniss.
2017 awarded playwright Annie Baker, writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, and writers Viet Thanh Nguyen and Jesmyn Ward.
In 201,8 fellowships went to writer Natalie Diaz and writers John Keene and Kelly Link.
The 2019 fellows included cartoonist Lynda Barry, literate scholars Saidiya Hartman and Jeffrey Alan Miller, classicist and translator Emily Wilson, and writers Valeria Luiselli and Ocean Vuong.
The 2020 cohort was outstanding, including essayist and student Tressie McMillan Cottam, playwright Larissa FastHorse, taste theorist and writer Fred Moten, and writers Cristina Rivera Garza, N.K. Jemisin, and Jacqueline Woodson.
English (US) ·