Gene Jarrett, the William S. Tod Professor of English and dean of the faculty at Princeton University, has been awarded the Truman Capote Literary Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin for his book, Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird (Princeton University Press, 2022). The award is presented annually by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop on behalf of the estate of Truman Capote.
The award-winning biography tells the story of Dunbar’s successes and struggles as an African American writer in the late 1800s. Dunbar is considered by many to be the “poet laureate of his race.”
Dr. Jarrett is a scholar of African American literary history from the eighteenth century to the present; U.S. literary history between the Civil War and World War II; race, ethnic, and cultural studies; and theories of literature, aesthetics, and intellectual historiography. In addition his biography of Dunbar, he is the author of Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature (New York University Press, 2011) and Dean and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).
Prior to joining the Princeton University faculty, Dr. Jarrett was the Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science and Professor of English at New York University. Earlier in his career, he served on the faculties of Boston University and the University of Maryland.
Dr. Jarrett is an alumnus of Princeton University, where he majored in English. He earned his master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from Brown University.
