Which author won the Booker Prize in 2016 for 'The Sellout'?

Paul Beatty won the 2016 Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout.

Published in 2015, The Sellout is a sharply satirical novel set in and around Los Angeles. Its unnamed narrator, often called “Bonbon,” becomes involved in an outrageous attempt to restore his neglected community’s visibility by reintroducing racial segregation and slavery as provocative social experiments. The absurd premise allows Beatty to examine racism, inequality and the myth of a “post-racial” America.

Beatty’s victory was historic because he became the first American writer to win the Booker Prize. The rules had been broadened in 2014, allowing writers of any nationality to compete, provided their books were written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

The Sellout also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Readers sometimes confuse its Booker year with its original American publication year: the novel appeared in 2015, but Beatty received the Booker Prize in 2016.