Claudia Rankine is the author of five books, including Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric and the bestselling Citizen: An American Lyric.

A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she is the winner of many prizes including the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship.

She is an adjunct professor of English and African-American Studies at Yale University, and has previously taught at Pomona College and the University of Southern California.