Walter Mosley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Mosley (born January 12, 1952) is a prominent American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction.
Mosley, who is Black and Jewish, has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, which is perhaps his most popular work.
Mosley has written over 20 books in a variety of genres, including non-mystery fiction, afrofuturist science fiction and non-fiction politics, and has been translated into 21 languages. Two of his books have been made into films or television specials; his first published book, Devil in a Blue Dress, became a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington. Mosley's fame increased in 1992 when then-President Bill Clinton, a fan of murder mysteries, named Mosley as one of his favorite authors.
Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including the Anisfield Wolf Award, an honor given to works that increase the appreciation and understanding of race in America. He was a finalist for the NAACP Award in Fiction and won the 1996 Black Caucus of the American Library Association's Literary Award for RL's Dream. He was an O. Henry Award winner in 1996 (for a Socrates Fortlow story). In 2005 the Sundance Institute gave him a "Risktaker Award" for both his creative and activist efforts. In 2006 he was the first recipient of the Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award for his young adult novel 47.
Mosley holds an honorary doctorate from the City College of New York, is on the Board of Trustees for Goddard College, and has served on the board of directors of the National Book Awards.
Contents |
[edit] Miscellaneous
Born and raised in Los Angeles, he now lives in New York City.
[edit] Works
[edit] Easy Rawlins mysteries
- Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
- A Red Death (1991)
- White Butterfly (1992)
- Black Betty (1994)
- A Little Yellow Dog (1996)
- Gone Fishin' (1997)
- Bad Boy Brawly Brown (2002)
- Six Easy Pieces (2003)
- Little Scarlet (2004)
- Cinnamon Kiss (2005)
[edit] Fearless Jones mysteries
- Fearless Jones (2001)
- Fear Itself (2003)
- Fear of the Dark (2006)
[edit] Science Fiction
- Blue Light (1998)
- Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World (2001)
- The Wave (2005)
[edit] Socrates Fortlow books
- Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1997)
- Walkin' the Dog (1999)
[edit] For Young Adults
- 47 (2005)
[edit] Other fiction
- RL's Dream (1995)
- The Man in My Basement (2004)
- Walking the Line (2005), a novella in the Transgressions series
- Fortunate Son (2006)
[edit] Erotica
- Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel (2006)
[edit] Nonfiction
- Workin' on the Chain Gang: Shaking off the Dead Hand of History (2000)
- What Next: An African American Initiative Toward World Peace (2003)
- Life Out of Context: Which Includes a Proposal for the Non-violent Takeover of the House of Representatives (2006)
- For Authors, Fragile Ideas Need Loving Every Day
[edit] Art book
- Maximum Fantastic Four (2005)
[edit] Films and Television
- Fallen Angels: Red Wind (1995) (TV)
- Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
- Always Outnumbered (1998) (TV)
[edit] External links
- Time Warner Books site on Mosley
- Walter Mosley at the Notable Names Database
- Powell Books interview of Walter Mosley Walter Mosely is briefly seen in the re-make of "The Manchurian Candidate" in a political meeting scene.