Novelist Edward P. Jones ’72 Named MacArthur Fellow

WORCESTER, Mass. – For the second consecutive year, an alumnus of the College of the Holy Cross has joined the exclusive ranks of recipients of a $500,000 award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of their work and contribution to society.

Novelist Edward P. Jones ’72, of Washington, D.C., today was named one of 23 new MacArthur Fellows. James J. Collins ’87, professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, and Osvaldo Golijov, associate professor of music at Holy Cross, were named MacArthur Fellows last year.

Jones is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Known World (2003) and an acclaimed collection of short stories Lost in the City (1992). In making the announcement, the foundation stated: "Edward P. Jones is a fiction writer who renders in story a mysterious incongruity of the human experience - how faith, dignity, and love often survive, and sometimes thrive, in the face of systemic adversity.... [He] works painstakingly to compose artful, morally complicated fiction that challenges, provokes, and enriches."

A sprawling saga, The Known World examines the antebellum world of free blacks who owned black slaves. Jones’ short story collection deals with African American working class and underclass experiences in mid-20th century, inner-city Washington, D.C.  His fiction has also appeared in such publications as Essence, Ploughshares, Callaloo, and The New Yorker. Jones received an MFA from the University of Virginia. He worked for nearly 20 years at Tax Notes, a trade publication, before being laid off in 2002 and working full time on his novel.

In a recent article in Holy Cross Magazine, Jones talked about growing up in poverty in Washington, and the experience of coming to Holy Cross, at the urging of a young Jesuit who was working in his neighborhood.

He was one of about two dozen African American students in the Class of ’72, was painfully shy, and quickly switched from his intended math major after falling far behind in his work. In the same article, Holy Cross English Professor Maurice Geracht (who taught Jones in the College’s inaugural creative writing program, and whom Jones credits with being the first to encourage him as writer) said of The Known World: "It’s an unbelievable book... it’s a wonderful humane kind of work. It’s a real meditation on what it is to be human."

As the foundation states, MacArthur fellows are "selected for their originality, creativity, and the potential to do more in the future. Candidates are nominated, evaluated, and selected through a rigorous and confidential process. No one may apply for the awards, nor are any interviews conducted." There are no restrictions on how recipients use the funds, which will be distributed over the next five years.

The inaugural class of MacArthur Fellows was named in 1981. Including this year’s Fellows, 682 people, ranging in age from 18 to 82, have been named MacArthur Fellows since the inception of the program.