Pen name Ronal Fair Name Ronald Fair Period 1966–present | Nationality African-American Occupation Writer, sculptor Role Writer | |
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Born October 27, 1932 (age 92) Chicago, Illinois ( 1932-10-27 ) Books Hog Butcher, We Can't Breathe, Many thousand gone, World of Nothing: Two Novellas, Excerpts Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada | ||
Ronald L. Fair (born October 27, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois) is an African-American writer known for his experimental and versatile literary forms. He is best known for his 1966 novel Hog Butcher, set in 1960s' Chicago. This was the basis of the 1975 film Cornbread, Earl and Me. The cast included Rosalind Cash and Laurence Fishburne. Relocating to Finland, Fair began sculpting in 1977. In December 1980 he became "born again", thereafter becoming a "Christian writer" and founder of the International Orphans' Assistance Association.
Contents
- Biography
- Publications
- Norwegian
- Swedish
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Lyrics for recordings
- Movies
- Play performances
- References
Biography
Ronald Fair was born to Mississippi farmworkers Herbert and Beulah Hunt Fair in Chicago, Illinois, where he went to school. After serving three years in the US Navy, he attended the Stenotype School of Chicago, after which he found employment as a court reporter for 12 years. Having begun writing in his teens, he published various pieces in publications including the Chicago Defender, Ebony, Chat Noir, before the publication in 1965 of his first novel, Many Thousand Gone: An American Fable. His second novel, Hog Butcher was filmed in 1975 as Cornbread, Earl and Me. In 1970 he published World of Nothing: Two Novellas, and 1972 the autobiographical novel We Can’t Breathe.
In 1977 Fair moved to Finland, where he dedicated himself more to sculpture than writing.