Walter Mosley is the recipient of the 2020 National Book Awards Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL).
Walter Mosley’s The Awkward Black Man is a collection of 17 short stories in which the heroes are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. They include a man who keeps a pet fly, another who prefers living as a vagrant, and one who’s an accidental prophet. Mosley is joined by W. Paul Coates, founder and director of Black Classic Press and a subject of the book The Brother You Choose: Paul Coates and Eddie Conway Talk About Life, Politics, and The Revolution.