The Sellout cover art

The Sellout

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Sellout

By: Paul Beatty
Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Born in Dickens, Los Angeles, the narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in his father's racially charged psychological studies. He is told that his father's memoir will solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed, he discovers there never was a memoir.

Fuelled by despair, he sets out to right this wrong with the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

©2015 Paul Beatty (P)2015 Audible, Inc. Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Funny Witty Thought-Provoking Memoir

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Best Short Stories, Book One cover art
Loose Ends cover art
The Netanyahus cover art
Tropic of Orange cover art
Ulysses cover art
Brave New World cover art
Slaughterhouse-Five cover art
Gulliver's Travels: A Signature Performance by David Hyde Pierce cover art
For Whom the Bell Tolls cover art
War and Peace cover art
The Sirens of Titan cover art
The Son of Mr. Suleman cover art
Invisible Man cover art
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court cover art
Running the Light cover art
Burnt Tongues cover art

Critic reviews

"Outrageous, hilarious and profound.... It takes a whole other level of sheer audacity to expose atrocious things through the play of wit.... Juiciness stains every lovely page of Beatty’s mad, marvellous, toothsome book." ( Financial Times)
"There's satire and then there's satire, and without question Paul Beatty's caustic third novel, The Sellout, definitely falls into the latter category...brutally honest and very funny." ( Independent)
All stars
Most relevant
brilliant, funny, cutting, the truth. great read (listen) about the real America, no holds barred, in an amusing story that says it as it is. everyone who feels America is a super power should listen to this - the truth.

the truth about the American dream at last

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As an older English woman living in a comfortable white neighbourhood, I can only try to understand, find it hard to imagine what it must be like to experience racism. Books like this should be required reading in my children's schools.

Challenging Read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Such emotive language it's a difficult listen at times, however well worth confronting your own demons. Cleverly written and wonderfully read - thank you!

Outstanding

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Amplified analysis of stereotypes, the black psyche & humour. A well written book. With asides a plenty, but a plot & characters are consistent & present.

Stereotypes, stereotypes,

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Superbly written in a fast flowing irreverant style and read with wit and feeling, this book takes you into a world of audacious concepts that we would never be allowed to consider, let alone voice. Paul Beatty does it with humour and intelligence in an entertaining story with touches of the madness of Hunter S Thompson and Flan O'Brian. Extremely well read by Prentice Onayemi, I imagine, like a History of Seven Killings, this book is easier to follow in audo form than print. highly eecommended.

Funny, clever and provocative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews