Kiese Laymon was born on August 15, 1974 in Jackson, MS. He is an editor, blogger,
professor of English at the University of Mississippi, writer of essays. short stories,
memoirs and novels. He has written at least three books.
Long Division was published in 2013. The book is an intriguing story that intertwines
two stories of people living in different times. It's about time travel, people disappearing,
and racism in the South. The Boston Review wrote: "In a multilayered, allusion-packed,
time-traveling plot set in Mississippi, Long Division takes us, nestling-doll-style, from
2013 to 1985, 1964, and back, engaging complex questions of race, violence, gender,
sexuality, and our relationship to history. More than anything, Laymon shows with
surprising lucidity how American racialized inequality is persistent but mutable,
that the past is not the present, but isn't, either, entirely past."