Alexs Pate

Alexs Pate (June 9, 1950-) is an assistant professor in African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota and also teaches writing in the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program. He is also founder and president of Innocent Technologies, which helps students, patients, clients, and customers develop solutions to issues in a relational way.

Pate is the author of five novels, including Losing Absalom, West of Rehoboth, and Finding Makeba. He was commissioned by Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks/SKG to write the novel Amistad, based on the screenplay by David Franzoni. His nonfiction work includes In the Heart of the Beat: The Poetry of Rap and The Past is Perfect: Memoir of a Father/Son Reunion (coming soon from Coffee House Press). He won a Minnesota Book Award for his novel Losing Absalom.