Parks, Suzan-Lori
(born: May 10, 1963)Suzan-Lori Parks was born in Fort Knox, KY May 10, 1963, but has lived in a number of states; her father a colonel in the U.S. Army and served in the Vietnam War while the family lived in Odessa, TX. The family also lived in Germany.
Suzan-Lori Parks is a major playwright as well as a screenwriter, musician, and novelist. She has received a number of awards, including the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog; she was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She wrote the screenplay for Spike Lee's Girl 6 and went on to work on many more, as well as write a number of books, including Getting Mother's Body: a novel and Venus. In 2023, Time magazine placed her on its 100 most influential people in the world list.
Parks is a graduate Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where she studied under James Baldwin. She currently resides in New York City.
For more see a biography written by Mariana Brandman at the womenshistory.org website; Suzan-Lori Parks at the Academy of Achievement website; Women of Color, Women of Words; Biography Index, vols. 20-26; and Contemporary Black Biography. Profiles from the international black community, vol. 34.
