Christina Sharpe is a writer, Professor, and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University in Toronto. She is also a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class (RGC), at the University of Johannesburg. Sharpe is the author of Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects (2010) and In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016)—named by the Guardian (UK) and The Walrus as one of the best books of 2016 and a nonfiction finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her third book, Ordinary Notes (2023) won the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Prize in Nonfiction and the Hodler Prize, and was a finalist for The National Book Award in Nonfiction, The National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Current Interest Book Award, and the James Tait Black Prize in Biography. Ordinary Notes was also named a Best Book of the Year by: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, NPR, New York Magazine, and Granta, among others. Sharpe is currently working on What Could a Vessel Be? (FSG/Knopf, Canada 2026) and Black. Still. Life. (Duke 2027). Her writing has appeared in many artist catalogues and journals including Frieze, Paris Review, Harpers, BOMB Magazine, and The Funambulist. In April 2024, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in Nonfiction and was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In May 2024 she received the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize for the Sciences and Humanities. In March 2025 she was named a Killam Prize Winner for the Humanities.

Research Interests

• Killam Prize - 2025
• Thomas Henry Pentland Molson Prize - 2024
• Guggenheim Fellowship, General Nonfiction - 2024
• Windham-Campbell Prize, Nonfiction - 2024
• Winner, Hodler Prize - 2024
• James Tait Black Prize, (University of Edinburgh, UK), Shortlisted - 2023
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, Finalist - 2023
• Winner, Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Nonfiction - 2023
• Finalist, National Book Awards, Nonfiction - 2023
• Shortlist, Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Nonfiction - 2023
• Longlist, National Book Awards, Nonfiction - 2023
• Nonfiction Finalist Hurston/Wright Legacy Award - 2017
• Ford Foundation Post Doctoral Fellowship - 2001

Christina Sharpe is a writer, Professor, and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University in Toronto. She is also a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class (RGC), at the University of Johannesburg. Sharpe is the author of Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects (2010) and In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016)—named by the Guardian (UK) and The Walrus as one of the best books of 2016 and a nonfiction finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her third book, Ordinary Notes (2023) won the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Prize in Nonfiction and the Hodler Prize, and was a finalist for The National Book Award in Nonfiction, The National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Current Interest Book Award, and the James Tait Black Prize in Biography. Ordinary Notes was also named a Best Book of the Year by: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, NPR, New York Magazine, and Granta, among others. Sharpe is currently working on What Could a Vessel Be? (FSG/Knopf, Canada 2026) and Black. Still. Life. (Duke 2027). Her writing has appeared in many artist catalogues and journals including Frieze, Paris Review, Harpers, BOMB Magazine, and The Funambulist. In April 2024, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in Nonfiction and was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In May 2024 she received the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize for the Sciences and Humanities. In March 2025 she was named a Killam Prize Winner for the Humanities.

Degrees

Appointments

Research Interests

Awards

• Killam Prize - 2025
• Thomas Henry Pentland Molson Prize - 2024
• Guggenheim Fellowship, General Nonfiction - 2024
• Windham-Campbell Prize, Nonfiction - 2024
• Winner, Hodler Prize - 2024
• James Tait Black Prize, (University of Edinburgh, UK), Shortlisted - 2023
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, Finalist - 2023
• Winner, Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Nonfiction - 2023
• Finalist, National Book Awards, Nonfiction - 2023
• Shortlist, Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Nonfiction - 2023
• Longlist, National Book Awards, Nonfiction - 2023
• Nonfiction Finalist Hurston/Wright Legacy Award - 2017
• Ford Foundation Post Doctoral Fellowship - 2001