Randall Kenan
| Randall Kenan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 12, 1963 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Randall Kenan (born March 12, 1963) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction. Raised in a rural community in North Carolina, Kenan has focused his fiction on what it means to be black and gay in the southern United States. Among his books is the collection of short stories Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, which was named a New York Times Notable Book in 1992. Kenan is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award and the John Dos Passos Prize.
Kenan was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 12, 1963. Initially raised by his grandparents, Kenan soon went to live with a great-aunt in Chinquapin, North Carolina, a rural community of fewer than a thousand people. The community later became the basis of the fictional Tims Creek, where all of Kenan's fiction is set.
Kenan attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which he graduated in 1985 with degrees in English and Creative Writing. He studied with the author Doris Betts. Based on an instructor's recommendation, and the help of novelist and editor Toni Morrison, he was hired for a job with Random House in New York City.
Kenan eventually transferred to the editorial staff of Alfred A. Knopf, where he worked until 1989. That same year he began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Currently, an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he has served as a visiting writer or writing in residence at a number of other universities, including the University of Mississippi, the University of Memphis, Duke University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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