Allie Biswas Author & Editor

Cultural critic and playwright Larry Neal was a leading member of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. He was born in Atlanta in 1937 and grew up in Philadelphia, earning a BA in English and history from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He also studied folklore as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. His collections of poetry, Black Boogaloo: Notes on a Black Literature (1969) and Hoodoo Hollerin Bebop Ghosts (1971), show the influence of vernacular speech and folklore.

Allie Biswas is a writer and researcher based in London. She is coeditor of The Soul of a Nation Reader: Writings by and about Black American Artists, 1960–1980 (2021). She has published interviews with artists including Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Meleko Mokgosi, Zanele Muholi, Adam Pendleton, and Wolfgang Tillmans. She has written catalogue essays for monographs on the work of Rina Banerjee, Arcmanoro Niles, Serge Alain Nitegeka, and Hannah van Bart. Forthcoming publications include a catalogue about the US Embassy’s art collection in London and interviews with Lubna Chowdhary, Theaster Gates, and Ibrahim Mahama.