Thomas Chatterton Williams

This article is about the American writer. For the English poet, see Thomas Chatterton.

Thomas Chatterton Williams (born March 26, 1981)^[3] is an American cultural critic and writer.^[1] He is the author of the 2019 book Self-Portrait in Black and White and a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is a visiting professor of the humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, and a 2022 Guggenheim fellow. Formerly, Williams was a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and an Easy Chair columnist for Harper's Magazine.

Thomas Chatterton Williams
Williams in 2020
Born	(1981-03-26) March 26, 1981 (age 44) Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Critic, author
Alma mater	Georgetown University New York University
Subject	Race, identity
Years active	2007–present[1]
Notable works	Losing My Cool (2010) Self-Portrait in Black and White (2019)
Notable awards	Berlin Prize Guggenheim Fellow
Spouse	Valentine Faure[2]
Children	2
Website
thomaschattertonwilliams.com

Early life and education

Thomas Chatterton Williams was born on March 26, 1981,^[3] in Newark, New Jersey,^[4] to a black father, Clarence Williams, and a white mother, Kathleen.^[2][5] Named after the English poet Thomas Chatterton, he was raised in Fanwood, New Jersey,^[5] and attended Union Catholic Regional High School in Scotch Plains.^[6] Williams graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He also completed a master's degree from New York University's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program.^[1]

Career

In 2010, Williams released his first book, Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture.^[7] The book is a coming-of-age memoir, mirroring Williams's childhood and adolescence in New Jersey to his father's experience in the segregated South.^[8] The book combines Williams's personal history with his analysis of the effect of hip-hop culture on black youth.^[9] In one passage, he describes physically assaulting his high school girlfriend and attributes his actions to the influence of hip hop's "pimpin'" culture.^[10][11]

Williams's second book, Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race, was released in 2019.^[12][13][14] Williams became a 2019 New America Fellow^[15] and a Berlin Prize^[16] recipient.

In 2020, Williams led the effort to write "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate", an open letter in Harper's Magazine signed by 152 public figures. It criticized what the letter argued was a culture of "intolerance of opposing views".^[17]

In January 2024, Williams became a staff writer at The Atlantic.^[18] He is also a visiting professor of the humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. He was formerly a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine^[19] and Harper's Magazine.^[20]

Personal life

Williams married French journalist and author Valentine Faure in France in 2011.^[2] He lives in Paris with Faure and their two children.^[21]

Bibliography

• Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture. The Penguin Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-59420-263-6.
• Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race. W. W. Norton & Company. 2019. ISBN 978-0-393-60886-1.
• Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse. Alfred A. Knopf. 2025. ISBN 978-0-593-53440-3.