Newlyweds, Celestial and Roy, are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. Triumphant' ElleĪn explosive love story about a marriage interrupted.Ĭould you put your life on hold for twelve years? A stunning love story about family, injustice and marriage, and three people at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. Beautifully written' The New York Times Book Review THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION And it went like this for a year.WINNER OF THE 2019 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION. I can’t bring any new books home because this book is on my couch. It’s not speaking to me, I’m not speaking to it. I would wake up in the morning: there’s the book. I felt like the book was sleeping on my couch. It was as though me and this book were in a relationship in New York City…we had broken up, but we couldn’t afford to move out. I couldn’t figure out how to end the book. “I got all the way to about fifty pages from the end, and I hit a wall. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.

Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. Silver Sparrow was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016.

A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, the New York Times, and Callaloo. New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. And moral ambiguity happens when there’s a conflict and the people don’t agree, but nobody’s wrong.” “For me, the novel lives in the place of moral ambiguity. A masterpiece of storytelling, it’s an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward-with hope and pain-into the future. She finishes the talk by sharing a short selection from An American Marriage.Īn American Marriage is a stirring love story and a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. She describes the path her career has taken, from childhood to university and beyond, in which she’s made decisions to pursue writing despite receiving varying levels of support from educators, family, and the publishing industry. In this humorous and personal lecture, Tayari Jones discusses her complex journey to literary success, and her novel, An American Marriage.

The Untelling by Tayari Jones