June 1, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
By CONSTANCE CASEY
The magazine Black Issues Book Review (May-June) looks at some of the writers among the 63 African Americans who have been awarded “genius” grants by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. (Over the last 18 years the MacArthur Foundation has awarded $563-million to 176 fellows.)
Some of the recipients were already established writers when they won the fellowships, including Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage, or Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo Jumbo.
More often the award draws attention to people on the verge of success. The sociologist Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, who won in 1984, said that getting $40,000 a year for five years marked a turning point. She found herself saying out loud, “Good, Sara. Now you can write a book about your mother.” She says it was the fellowship money that allowed her to write A Balm in Gilead, a biography of her mother, one of the first black women to get a medical degree from Columbia University.
Another winner, John Edgar Wideman, told the magazine, “I’m certain that a spate of creativity is connected with that extra money. There was a boost in confidence.” Mr. Wideman, who received the award in 1993, said, “the only thing bad about it is the last check.”
