Peter L’Official is an Assistant Professor of Literature at Bard College. His writing has appeared in publications such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and GQ. His academic work delves into American literature and culture, exploring the intricate connections between race, economics, and narrative. L’Official seeks to uncover how American writing and thought have been shaped by these complex forces.
Since the 1960s the South Bronx has been reduced to an archetype of the inner city, the exemplar of urban decay and of the cultural renaissance produced by hip hop. Peter L'Official turns to literature and visual arts to capture the history of a place whose truth lay obscured between the Bronx as symbol and the Bronx as lived fact.