Suzan-Lori Parks (born 10 May 1963) is an American playwright and screenwriter. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Topdog/Underdog.
Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky into a military family. She spent part of her childhood in Germany and "attended German high school instead of the English speaking school for military children. The experience, in addition to teaching...
more
Suzan-Lori Parks (born 10 May 1963) is an American playwright and screenwriter. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Topdog/Underdog.
Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky into a military family. She spent part of her childhood in Germany and "attended German high school instead of the English speaking school for military children. The experience, in addition to teaching her the fundamentals of language, showed Parks what it feels like to be neither white nor black, but simply foreign."
She eventually returned to the United States and graduated from The John Carroll School in 1981. She later attended and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1985 with a B.A. in English and German literature (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa).
Parks noted in an interview that her name is spelled with a "Z" as the result of a misprint early in her career:
Parks would credit the impact of Mount Holyoke on her career later in life. ...
less