Mat Johnson

Mat Johnson

Mat Johnson is a Philip H Knight Chair of Humanities at the University of Oregon.

His publications included the novels

  • The Invisible Things (One World/Random House, Coming June 2022)
  • Loving Day (Spiegel & Grau/Random House, June 2015)
    • 2016 American Book Award Winner
    • Cover of The New York Times Sunday Book Review, June 1, 2015
    • Named a New York Times Notable Book
    • Named one of the “Ten Best Books of the Year” by the Miami Herald
    • Best of the year selection by San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Men’s Journal, The Denver Post, Slate, The Kansas City Star, Time Out New York
    • Optioned by the Showtime Network
  • Pym (Spiegel & Grau/Random House, March 2011)
    • 2011 Dos Passos Prize Winner
    • Best of the year selection by The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Houston Chronicle, The Seattle Times, Salon, National Post, The A.V. Club
  • Hunting in Harlem (Bloomsbury USA, Spring 2003)
    • 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Best Novel
    • Best African American Fiction anthology selection, Bantam 2009
  • Drop (Bloomsbury USA, Fall 2000)
    • Discovery Great New Writers Selection
    • “Best Books of 2001” selection, Progressive Magazine

the nonfiction novella

  • Great Negro Plot (Bloomsbury USA, February 2007)

and the graphic novels

  • Incognegro Renaissance (Dark Horse Comics, February 2018)
  • Right State (Vertigo/Warner Books, August 2012)
  • Dark Rain (Vertigo/Warner Books, August 2010)
  • Incognegro (Vertigo/Warner Books, February 2008; 10th Anniversary Reissue, February 2018)

Johnson is the recipient of the American Book Award, the United States Artist James Baldwin Fellowship, The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, and the American Book Award. He is a regular commentator on NPR’s Fresh Air.

638: Mat Johnson: Exploring and Expressing Identity

Longtime listeners know I spent some formative years in some rough neighborhoods in Philadelphia. In researching them for my upcoming book, I discovered the many-award-winning book Loving Day by Mat Johnson took place largely a block from where I lived. His Wikipedia page showed he went to grade school with my stepbrother and stepsister.

I read and loved Loving Day, which not only described my neighborhood, it explored it through race, which I was looking to understand, and it was raw and vulnerable, which I struggle to create in my writing. It opens: “In the ghetto there is a mansion, and it is my father’s house.” That house was a block from my home.

Loving Day led me to read his books Pym, Incognegro, and Incognegro Renaissance, all of which I enjoyed, comprising most of the fiction I’ve read lately. I invited him to this podcast to explore all these topics. Since he teaches writing at the graduate level and has written so much, he shared more than I had hoped for, to my pleasant surprise.

I think of this episode as less about the environment and more personal to me and my history, but his experience in creative expression and teaching will make it valuable to all.

← Back to Guests