Authors Jason Reynolds and Ling Ma are among the 22 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius" grants. Each MacArthur Fellow receives a no-strings-attached, $800,000 award. The list of 2024 fellows includes the following authors, poets, and writers:
Loka Ashwood, "a sociologist examining the intersection of environmental injustice, corporate and state power, and anti-government sentiment in American rural communities. Ashwood reveals how state support for some corporate interests can come at a high cost for rural residents. She draws from her own experience on her family’s farm and ethnographic research in rural communities facing ecological, economic, and social challenges. By analyzing specific local issues in the context of larger institutional structures, she sheds light on rural identity, culture, and politics."
Ruha Benjamin, "a transdisciplinary scholar and writer illuminating how advances in science, medicine, and technology reflect and reproduce social inequality. By integrating critical analysis of innovation with attentiveness to the potential for positive change, Benjamin demonstrates the importance of imagination and grassroots activism in shaping social policies and cultural practices."
Jericho Brown, "a poet reflecting on contemporary culture and identity in works that combine formal experimentation and intense self-examination. He reimagines well-known poetic forms and rhythmic structures in ways that heighten a poem’s emotional charge. Across three collections, Brown explores themes of masculinity, spirituality, family, sexuality, and racial identity from a personal perspective as well as from feelings inspired by pop culture and contemporary America."
Juan Felipe Herrera, "a poet, educator, and writer uplifting Chicanx culture and amplifying shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment through poetry and prose for adults and children. Herrera’s literary output, in both English and Spanish, crosses genres and spans five decades; his work is united by deep empathy and joy for all groups in the act of artistic creation."
Ling Ma, "a fiction writer mixing speculative and realist modes of storytelling to reflect on the systems that structure our lives in a globalized, capitalist era. Many of her characters navigate jobs, relationships, cultural expectations, and hyphenated, immigrant identities that both trap and liberate them in various ways. Ma often grounds her fictions in familiar settings and scenarios—corporate offices, a one-night stand, a shopping mall—and then surprises readers with fantastical plot turns. Delivered with a deadpan sense of humor, these turns throw into relief the surreal aspects of our contemporary condition and our attachments to routines and consumer goods in the face of loss and disconnection."
Jennifer L. Morgan, "a historian deepening understanding of how the system of race-based slavery developed in early America. Using a range of archival materials—and what is missing from them—Morgan brings to light enslaved African women’s experiences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She shows that exploitation of enslaved women was central to the economic and ideological foundations of slavery in the Atlantic world."
Shailaja Paik, "a historian of modern India exploring the intersection of caste, gender, and sexuality through the lives of Dalit (“Untouchable”) women. Paik provides new insight into the history of caste domination and traces the ways in which gender and sexuality are used to deny Dalit women dignity and personhood. Across her work, Paik centers Dalit perspectives. In addition to English, Marathi, and Hindi-language source materials, she is creating a new archive comprised of her interviews and fieldwork with contemporary Dalit women."
Jason Reynolds, "a writer of children’s and young adult literature whose books reflect the rich inner lives of kids of color and offer profound moments of human connection. He writes to fill a void he experienced as a young Black boy from Oxon Hill, Maryland, who seldom saw communities like his depicted in the books he was encouraged to read at school. With a poet’s ear for rhythm and a storyteller’s sense of narrative pacing and structure, Reynolds weaves humor, joy, and playfulness into his works. At the same time, he does not shy away from depicting the challenging realities of racism, economic inequity, police brutality, and grief for his young readers. The characters featured in his fiction forge friendships, discover talents, act out, seek forgiveness, face fears, and care for parents with cancer."
Dorothy Roberts, "a legal scholar and public policy researcher exposing racial inequities embedded within health and social service systems. Roberts’s work encompasses reproductive health, bioethics, and child welfare. She sheds light on systemic inequities, amplifies the voices of those directly affected, and boldly calls for wholesale transformation of existing systems."
Alice Wong, "a writer, editor, and disability justice activist cultivating a vibrant and diverse community of disabled people rooted in joy, abundance, mutual aid, and care. Wong is steeped in disability justice and uses the power of storytelling across various media platforms. She publishes personal stories that expose ableist attitudes, policies, and practices across a society that pushes disabled people to the margins. She also shares her own experiences navigating the world as a disabled person with a progressive neuromuscular disease."