The Sellout, which took five years to write, is a novel shot through with humour – even though its protagonist is on trial for trying to reinstate slavery and segregation. Beatty, a poetry-slam champion and editor of a book on African-American humour, later confessed to feeling concerned that the comedy might obscure his serious theme about racial injustice.

He needn’t have worried; in the light of Black Lives Matter, the novel looks ever more prescient.