Gerald Early

Gerald Early is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis. He specializes in writing about African American literature and culture, sports, jazz, and the cultural history of the United States. He won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction for The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture. His latest book, written in collaboration with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America. He is also the editor of the Sammy Davis Jr. Reader and the Muhammad Ali Reader. He is also the editor of the Common Reader, the online journal of Washington University.