Jesse McCarthy co-edits the Literary Fiction section of Public Books. He is an assistant professor in the departments of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. His essays and reviews on race, literature, politics, and music have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, The Nation, n+1, Dissent, and The Point, where he is also a contributing editor. He is the author of a collection of essays, Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? (Liveright, 2021) and a novel, The Fugitivities (Melville House, 2021).











