Hokum

Here's a new one by Paul Beatty.

Author Paul Beatty is back in the swing of things with his latest effort, ‘Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor,’ which hits stores Jan. 17. Author of ‘Tuff’ and ‘Joker, Joker, Deuce,’ Beatty, a 43-year-old Los Angeles native, is renowned for pushing the envelope. “I write because I’m too afraid to steal, too ugly to act, too weak to fight, and too stupid in math to be a Cosmologist,” the irreverent scribe once said. With ‘Hokum,’ he collected humorous writings from the likes of W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, H. Rap Brown, Mike Tyson, Suzan-Lori Parks and Lord Finesse among others. We recently interviewed Paul Beatty about ‘Hokum’s’ controversial cover image and the overall state of black humor.