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Suzan-Lori Parks (born 1964) is an African-American playwright and novelist. Her 2002 play Topdog/Underdog—about family identity, fraternal interdependence, and the struggles of everyday Black life—won her the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
After taking a writing class in the 1980s with James Baldwin she, at his behest, began to write plays. Years later, in 2000, her play In The Blood was a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize.
She wrote her first screenplay for the poorly-received 1996 Spike Lee movie called Girl 6, the story of an aspiring actress who works for a phone-sex hotline.
She is the author of the novel Getting Mother's Body. Her other plays include: The American Play (the opening scene of which inspired Topdog/Underdog), Venus, In the Blood and Fucking A.
She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 2001.
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