Ishmael Reed is the award-winning author of over twenty-five books including Mumbo Jumbo, The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Juice!. He is also a publisher, television producer, songwriter, radio and television commentator, lecturer, and has long been devoted to exploring an alternative black aesthetic: the trickster tradition, or Neo-Hoodooism as he calls it. Founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for over thirty years, retiring in 2005. In 2003, he received the coveted Otto Award for political theater. His most recent essay collection, Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico, was published in 2019 by Baraka Books of Montreal. He lives in Oakland, California.
