Kevin Young, 'Bunk'

Young is the award-winning author of eleven collections of poetry and The Grey Album, a playful multi-genre study of the African American tradition of “jazzing.” In his second work of nonfiction, Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and poetry editor at The New Yorker, traces the history of hoaxing. A traditionally American phenomenon, hoaxes range from P.T. Barnum’s exhibit of Washington’s 161-year-old nursemaid and the “Native Americans” Grey Owl and Nasdjji to invented memoirs, identity thefts, fake news, and, the biggest hoax of all, race. Young shows how these stunts grow from stereotypes and suspicion to foster a culture of “truthiness” rife with cynicism.

Produced by Tom Warren