Suzan-Lori Parks is one of the most acclaimed playwrights in the American theater. She is the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for her 2002 play Topdog/Underdog. James Baldwin, Parks's mentor, declared her to be ?an astonishing and beautiful creature who may become one of the most valuable artists of our time.?

Her other plays include Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 and 3), In the Blood, Venus, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, and The America Play. In 2007, her 365 Days/365 Plays was produced at more than seven hundred theaters worldwide. Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and Master Writer Chair at The Public Theater. In 2018, she was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama.