Thomas Chatterton Williams (born March 26, 1981)^[3] is an American cultural critic and writer.^[1] He is the author of the 2019 book Self-Portrait in Black and White and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is a visiting professor of the humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, and a 2022 Guggenheim fellow. Formerly, Williams was a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and an Easy Chair columnist for Harper's Magazine.

Thomas Chatterton Williams was born on March 26, 1981,^[3] in Newark, New Jersey,^[4] to a black father, Clarence Williams, and a white mother, Kathleen.^[2][5] Named after the English poet Thomas Chatterton, he was raised in Fanwood, New Jersey,^[5] and attended Union Catholic Regional High School in Scotch Plains.^[6] Williams graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He also completed a master's degree from New York University's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program.^[1]

In 2010, Williams released his first book, Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture.^[7] The book is a coming-of-age memoir, mirroring Williams's childhood and adolescence in New Jersey to his father's experience in the segregated South.^[8]

Williams's second book, Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race, was released on October 15, 2019.^[9][10][11] He became a 2019 New America Fellow^[12] and a Berlin Prize^[13] recipient.

In 2020, Williams wrote the initial draft of "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate", an open letter in Harper's Magazine signed by 152 public figures. It criticized what the letter argued was a culture of "intolerance of opposing views".^[14]

Williams is now a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a visiting professor of the humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. He was formerly a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine^[15] and Harper's Magazine.^[16]

Williams married French journalist and author Valentine Faure in France in 2011.^[2] He lives in Paris with Faure and their two children.^[17]

• Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race. W. W. Norton & Company. 2019. ISBN 978-0-393-60886-1.
• Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture. The Penguin Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-59420-263-6.