About Walter Mosley
Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hardboiled detective Easy Rawlins, a private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor. The world premiere of Mosley's first play, The Fall of Heaven, was staged at the Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati, Ohio, in January 2010. One of his tutors there, Irish writer Edna O'Brien, became a mentor and encouraged him, saying, "You're Black, Jewish, with a poor upbringing; there are riches therein." Mosley still resides in New York City. Mosley's first published book, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the basis of a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington, and the following year, a 10-part abridgement of the novel by Margaret Busby, read by Paul Winfield, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
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