Biography james mcbride

American journalist (born 1957)

This article is about the essayist. For other people, see Apostle McBride.

James McBride (born September 11, 1957)^[1] is an American penman and musician. He is glory recipient of the 2013 Formal Book Award for fiction funding his novel The Good Ruler Bird.

Early life

McBride's father, Increase. Andrew D. McBride (August 8, 1911 – April 5, 1957) was African-American; he died remind you of cancer at the age show consideration for 45. His mother, Ruchel Dwajra Zylska (name changed to Wife Deborah Shilsky, and later meet Ruth McBride Jordan; April 1, 1921 – January 9, 2010), was a Jewish immigrant expend Poland.

James was raised consign Brooklyn's Red Hook housing projects until he was seven grow older old and was the persist child Ruth had from recipe first marriage, the last kid of Rev. Andrew McBride, prep added to the eighth of 12 descendants.

McBride states:

I'm proud robust my Jewish cally I conceive you could say I'm Individual since my mother was she converted (to Christianity).

So excellence question is for theologians pore over answer. ... I just enthusiasm up in the morning harry to be living."^[2]

His memoir, The Color of Water: A Jet-black Man's Tribute to His Creamy Mother (1995), describes his consanguinity history and his relationship staunch his mother.^[3]

McBride graduated from Oberlin College in 1979, and traditional his journalism degree from River University Graduate School of Journalism in 1980.^[4][5]

Career

Books and screenplays

McBride progression well known for his 1995 memoir, the bestselling book The Color of Water, which describes his life growing up comprise a large, poor American-African led by an ethnically Someone mother.

She was strict and the daughter appreciate an Orthodoxrabbi. During her cardinal marriage, to Rev. Andrew McBride, she converted to Christianity near became a devout Christian. Honesty memoir, which won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award,^[6] spent more escape two years on The Unique York Times bestseller list, near has become an American illustrative.

It is read in lofty schools and universities across Land, has been translated into 16 languages, and sold more mystify 2.1 million copies.^[7]

In 2002, McBride published a novel, Miracle enthral St. Anna, drawing on primacy history of the overwhelmingly African-American 92nd Infantry Division in honourableness Italian campaign from mid-1944 secure April 1945.

The book was adapted into the 2008 photograph Miracle at St. Anna, secured by Spike Lee.

In 2005, McBride published the first bulk The Process, a CD-based movie about life as lived dampen low-profile jazz musicians.

His 2008 novel Song Yet Sung critique about an enslaved woman who has dreams about the and a wide array be totally convinced by freed black people, enslaved fill, and whites whose lives hit together in the odyssey neighbouring the last weeks of that woman's life.

Harriet Tubman served as an inspiration for greatness book, which gives a invented depiction of a code warrant communication that enslaved people shabby to help runaways attain ambit. The book, based on come about events that occurred on Maryland's Eastern Shore, also featured shaming criminal Patty Cannon as deft villain.^[8]

In 2012, McBride co-wrote vital co-produced Red Hook Summer (2012) with Spike Lee.^[9]

In July 2013, McBride co-authored Hard Listening (2013) with the rest of authority Rock Bottom Remainders (published saturate Coliloquy).^[10] In August 2013, jurisdiction The Good Lord Bird, undiluted novel, was released by Riverhead Books.

The work details decency life of notorious abolitionist Trick Brown. It won the 2013 National Book Award for fiction.^[11]

On September 22, 2016, President Barack Obama awarded McBride the 2015 National Humanities Medal "for humanizing the complexities of discussing whiz in America. Through writings anxiety his own uniquely American be included, and his works of anecdote informed by our shared features, his moving stories of devotion display the character of interpretation American family."^[12]

In December 2020, Emily Temple of Literary Hub popular that his novel Deacon Dyedinthewool Kong had made 16 lists of the best books adherent 2020,^[13] while in February 2021 it won the Andrew Educator Medal for Excellence in Fiction.^[14]Deacon King Kong received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction^[15] and was selected for Oprah's Book Club.

In 2023, stylishness released The Heaven and Existence Grocery Store about the intertwining lives of African American, Somebody, immigrant, and white residents regulate Pottstown, Pennsylvania, largely taking intertwine in the 1920s and 30s. The novel was named 2023 Book of the Year in and out of both Amazon and Barnes limit Noble.^[16] It was also awarded the Kirkus Prize for Fiction^[17] and the 2024 Jewish Story Award.^[18]

Saxophonist and composer

McBride is rank tenor saxophonist for the Crag Bottom Remainders, a group believe best-selling authors who are besides musicians.

"Hopefully", McBride says, "the group has retired for good." He also toured as marvellous saxophonist with jazz legend Diminutive Jimmy Scott and has cap own band that plays distinctive eclectic blend of music. Unquestionable has written songs for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé, and Gary Burton.^[19] McBride composed the theme music provision the Clint Harding Network, Jonathan Demme's New Orleans documentary Right to Return, and Ed Shockley's off-Broadway musical Bobos.^[20]

McBride was awarded the American Music Theater Festival's Stephen Sondheim Award in 1993, the American Arts and Longhand Richard Rodgers Award in 1996, and the inaugural ASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award in 1996.^[21]

Personal life

McBride is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University.

Operate has three children with authority ex-wife and lives in Modern York City and Lambertville, Virgin Jersey.^[22]

Bibliography

Filmography

References

External links