Isabel Wilkerson is an American journalist born in Washington, D.C. in 1961. She made history as the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Wilkerson is best known for her major works of narrative nonfiction. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, was published in 2010 and examines the mass migration of African Americans from the rural South to northern and western cities during the twentieth century. Her second book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, was published in 2020 and explores systems of hierarchy and social stratification.