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Daniel Black, Arkansas Author

danielblack.org

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with novelist Daniel Omotosho Black from Blackwell, Arkansas. Much of Black’s fiction contains a deep-felt sense of Arkansas, focusing on home, history and identity.

His bestselling novels, They Tell Me of a Home, The Sacred Place, Perfect Peace, Twelve Gates to the City, and the soon to be released The Coming have all been published by St. Martin’s Press.

Black graduated from Morrilton High School and went on to attend Clark University in Atlanta, Georgia to major in English. At 20, he earned the prestigious Oxford Modern British Studies fellowship which sent him to Oxford University in 1987. Upon graduation, he was awarded a full fellowship to Temple University where he began work on his first novel, They Tell Me of A Home.

Black has twice been nominated for The Townsend Literary Prize. Other nominations also include The Ernest J. Gaines Award, the Ferro-Grumbley Literary Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Georgia Author of the Year Prize. 

In response to Perfect Peace, the Go On Girl! National Book Club Committee named Black its “Author of the Year” in 2011. The book is the 2014 selection for the If All Arkansas Read the Same Book project sponsored by the Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library.

Black currently teaches at Clark Atlanta University.

This project is sponsored by the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Extras

sonia_sanchez.mp3
Daniel Black discusses the influence of his mentor, Sonia Sanchez.
on_black_s_distinctions.mp3
Black talks about the honors he's received.

They_Tell_Me_of_a_Home.mp3
Members of the St. Mark Baptist Church Praise Team, of Little Rock, perform the gospel song, "Uncloudy Day."