Gayl Jones (born November 23, 1949) is an American writer from

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

. She is recognized as a key figure in 20th-century

African-American literature African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African ...

Imani Perry Imani Perry (born September 5, 1972) is an American interdisciplinary scholar of race, law, literature, and African-American culture. She is currently the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a columnis ...

posits Jones as "one of the most versatile and transformative writers of the 20th century" while

Calvin Baker Calvin Baker (born 1972)"Baker, Calvin 1972-"

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' newspaper, Yara Rodrigues Fowler stated: "Gayl Jones is a literary legend. In novels and poetry, she has reimagined the lives of Black women across North, South and Central America, living in different centuries, in a way no other writer has done." Jones published her debut novel, '' Corregidora'' (1975), at the age of 25. The book, edited by

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

, was met with critical acclaim and praised by leading intellectuals including

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

and

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...

. Her sophomore novel '' Eva's Man'' was met with less renown and characterized as "dangerous" by some critics for its raw depiction of cruelty and violence. Jones continued publishing in the late 1990s, releasing '' The Healing'' and ''Mosquito—''the former of which was shortlisted for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

. Following her husband's widely reported suicide in 1998, Jones withdrew from public life. In 2021, she published ''Palmares,'' her first novel in 22 years. It was a finalist for the 2022

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

Early life and education

Jones was born on November 23, 1949, to Franklin and Lucille Jones. Her father was a cook and her mother a homemaker and writer. Jones grew up in Speigle Heights, a neighborhood of Lexington, Kentucky, in a house with no indoor toilet. Jones grew up in a storytelling family: Her grandmother wrote plays for her church, and her mother constantly made up stories to entertain the children and other family members. Jones recalled, "I began to write when I was seven, because I saw my mother writing, and because she would read stories to my brother and me, stories that she had written". Although she was described as painfully shy, many of Jones's elementary school instructors recognized her writing skills and encouraged her talent to grow. Jones first attended segregated schools but for high school enrolled as one of the few Black students at

Henry Clay High School Henry Clay High School is an American public high school in Lexington, Kentucky. Opened on Main Street in 1928, it was named in honor of the Kentuckian and United States statesman, Henry Clay. The Main Street location now houses the main offices ...

. She was academically successful and earned a recommendation, through writer Elizabeth Hardwick, to

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

. There she became a student of poets William Meredith and

Robert Hayden Robert Hayden (August 4, 1913February 25, 1980) was an American poet, essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was the first African-Americ ...

. She graduated in 1971, receiving her

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in English. While attending the college she also earned the Frances Steloff Award for Fiction. She then began a graduate program in

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, studying under poet

Michael Harper Michael Harper may refer to: *Michael Harper (cricketer) (born 1945), South African cricketer *Michael Harper (priest) (1931–2010), English charismatic Anglican, later an Orthodox priest *Michael S. Harper (1938–2016), African-American poet *Mi ...

and earning a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in 1973 and a

Doctor of Arts The Doctor of Arts (D.A.; occasionally D.Arts or Art.D. from the Latin ''artium doctor'') is a discipline-based terminal doctoral degree that was originally conceived and designed to be an alternative to the traditional research-based Doctor of ...

in 1975.

Career

Jones's mentor,

, introduced her work to author

. Morrison was an editor at

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

at the time and was so impressed after reading Jones's manuscript once wrote, "that no novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this". In 1975, Jones published her first novel ''Corregidora'' at the age of 26. That same year she was a visiting lecturer at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, which hired her the following year as an assistant professor. She left her faculty position in 1983 and moved to Europe, where she wrote and published ''Die Vogelfaengerin'' (The Birdwatcher) in Germany, and a poetry collection, ''Xarque and Other Poems''. Her work features in anthologies including ''Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women'' (1983, edited by

Imamu Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

and

Amina Baraka Amina Baraka (born Sylvia Robinson; December 5, 1942) is an American poet, actress, author, community organizer, singer, dancer, and activist. Her poetic themes are about social justice, family, and women. Her poetry has been featured in anthol ...

) and ''

Daughters of Africa ''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, ...

'' (1992, edited by

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisherJazzmine Breary"Let' ...

). Jones's 1998 novel ''The Healing'' was a finalist for the

, although the media attention surrounding her novel's release focused more on the controversy in her personal life than on the work itself. Her papers are currently housed at the

Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center The Mugar Memorial Library is the primary library for study, teaching, and research in the humanities and social sciences for Boston University. It was opened in 1966. Stephen P. Mugar, an Armenian immigrant who was successful in the grocery b ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

. Jones currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she continues to write. Jones has described herself as an improvisor, and her work bears out that statement: like a jazz or blues musician, Jones plays upon a specific set of themes, varying them and exploring their possible permutations. Though her fiction has been called "Gothic" in its exploration of madness, violence, and sexuality, musical metaphors might make for a more apt categorization.Byerman, K., "Black Vortex: The Gothic Structure of Eva's Man", ''Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States'' 7 (1980): 93–101.

Personal life

While studying at the

, Jones met a politically active student, Robert Higgins, who would eventually become her husband. At a gay rights parade in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...

, in the early 1980s, Higgins claimed to be God and that

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

was a form of punishment. After being punched by a woman at the parade, he returned with a shotgun and was arrested with a charge that carried four years in jail. Instead of appearing in court to face charges, Jones and Higgins fled the United States to Europe, and Jones resigned from the University of Michigan with a note addressed to President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

that read: "I reject your lying racist xpletive and I call upon God. Do what you want. God is with Bob and I'm with him." Some have debated the authorship of the note. In 1988, Jones and Higgins returned to the United States, but kept their identities hidden. In the late 1990s, Jones's mother was diagnosed with throat cancer, and in 1997, Higgins objected to a medical procedure for his mother-in-law, but was banned from the hospital room after a psychological evaluation on Jones's mother found she was "inappropriately manipulated by family--especially son-in-law." Jones and Higgins wrote up a document about the incident called "Kidnapped/Held Incommunicado," which was sent to the national press, and on March 3, 1997, was forwarded to President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

and Vice President

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...

. On March 20, Jones's mother died, igniting Higgins to start a campaign against the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

Markey Cancer Center, which had been the defendant in several civil rights cases in the recent past. During this time, Jones's novel ''The Healing'' was in the process of being released. Higgins began to call and write the Lexington police multiple times a day. A letter that arrived to the police station on February 20, 1998, indicated a bomb threat, and police figured out that Higgins, who at the time was using the alias Bob Jones, was previously wanted for arrest. After a standoff with police at their residence, Higgins committed suicide and Jones was put on suicide watch. Since then, Jones only talks to family and Harper and has refused several requests for interviews.

Selected bibliography

Fiction

* '' Corregidora'' (novel) (1975) * ''Eva's Man'' (novel) (1976) * ''White Rat'' (short stories) (1977) * ''Raveena'' (short stories) (1986) * ''The Healing'' (novel) (1998) * ''Mosquito'' (novel) (1999) * ''Palmares'' (novel) (2021) * '' The Birdcatcher'' (novel) (2022)

Poetry collections

* ''Song for Anninho'' (1981) * ''The Hermit-Woman'' (1983) * ''Xarque and Other Poems'' (1985) * ''Deep Song and Other Poems'' (2020)

Other works

* ''Chile Woman'' (play) (1974) * ''Liberating Voices: Oral Tradition in African American Literature'' (criticism) (1991)

''Corregidora''

Jones's first novel, '' Corregidora'' (1975), anticipated the wave of novels exploring the connections between slavery and the

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

present. Its publication coincided with the peak of the

Black Arts Movement The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from ...

and concepts of "Africanism." It was precursor to the Women's Renaissance of the 1980s, often identified by its acknowledgement of the multiplicity of African-American identities and renewed interest in history and slavery. Authors associated with the Black Women's Movement include

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...

Paule Marshall Paule Marshall (April 9, 1929 – August 12, 2019) was an American writer, best known for her 1959 debut novel '' Brown Girl, Brownstones''. In 1992, at the age of 63, Marshall was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship grant. Life and career Marshall wa ...

, among others. The novel moves across different geographic spaces, from Brazil, to a moment in St. Louis, but is predominantly set in Kentucky. Ursa Corregidora, the novel's protagonist, is a blues singer searching for "a song that would touch me, touch my life ''and'' theirs ... A song branded with the new world" (59). Ursa's search reflects her struggle to construct selfhood amidst the traumatic stories told by her great-grandmother and grandmother of their experiences at the hands of the

Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese Brazilians ( pt, luso-brasileiros) are Brazilians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Portugal. Most of the Portuguese who arrived throughout the centuries in Brazil sought economic opportunities. Although present since t ...

slaveholder Simon Corregidora. Ursa's matrilineal line—great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother—make it their lives' purpose to keep alive the history of their abuse and torture, and by extension that of African slaves in the New World. From the age of five onward, Ursa inherits the duty to "make generations" that can testify to the brutal crimes of slavery. But the Corregidora women's obsession with the past burdens Ursa, who struggles, as a singer, to find her own purpose in life. Even as she attempts to do so, she herself is trapped in abusive relationships. When Ursa and her husband Mutt get into a physical altercation regarding her refusal to stop singing, she falls (or is pushed) down a flight of stairs, loses her unborn baby, and has an emergency hysterectomy. The year is 1948. Unable to birth the generations necessary to pass down the Corregidora narrative, Ursa loses any fragile sense of self she previously had. She divorces Mutt, unwilling to forgive him for taking away her sole purpose in life, and attempts to heal under the watchful eyes of her friends Tadpole McCormick (owner of Happy's Café, where Ursa sings) and Catherine Lawson (bisexual hairstylist, who lives across the street from Happy's). Ursa moves in with Cat briefly after realizing her stay at Tad's is forcing romantic relations with him. However, at Cat's, Ursa receives unwanted sexual attention from a young girl Jeffy, who she realizes is Cat's lover. Confronted with their lesbianism, Ursa promptly returns to Tad's, and the two marry shortly thereafter. Yet, Ursa and Tad's marriage fails to be any different from the abusive, possessive relationship with Mutt. Ursa finds Tad in bed with another woman and moves out. Jones succinctly renders the destructive romantic relationships between Black men and women, a lingering effect of the patriarchal slave system where Black bodies were abused and consumed. In order to heal, Ursa seeks out her mother's story, a tale overshadowed by Great Gram and Gram's experiences in Old Man Corregidora's plantation-brothel. Mama, similarly taught to associate sex with violence, has only slept with one man, Ursa's father Martin, on one occasion. Despite his willingness to marry her and move in with her, Mama was unable to reciprocate a romantic relationship and eventually caused Martin to hate her. Martin returned the humiliation he felt when Mama visited him after the birth of Ursa. After smacking Mama around, Martin ripped her clothes and made her walk through the streets like a "whore." Mama and Martin's relationship exemplifies what could happen to Ursa if she doesn't find a way to live her own life, rather than just rehearsing that of her foremothers. With this new knowledge, Ursa redoubles her efforts in blues singing and begins to heal. When she reunites with Mutt, 22 years after their divorce, the two attempt to reconcile. During an act of fellatio, Ursa decides not to repeat her great-grandmother's secret act in which she bit the penis of Old Man Corregidora. Critics have interpreted this ending very differently: some seeing Ursa's refusal to repeat the past a sign of a disruption of the obliterating cycle and indicative of her reconciliation with Mutt, while others argue Ursa fails to resist abusive heterosexual relationships and therefore becomes a passive, unrealized heroine. Incest is a major theme in a novel, and a recurring trope in the works of other prominent African-American writers at the time, including: Toni Morrison (''

The Bluest Eye ''The Bluest Eye,'' published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great De ...

''),

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

's (''

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' is a 1969 autobiography describing the young and early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of charact ...

''), Alice Walker's (''The Child Who Favored Daughter''), and

's (''Just Above My Head''). Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman, in her book ''Against the Closet: Identity, Political Longing, and Black Figuration'', discusses incest as a "central trope through which black female identity and black familial dilemmas are figured in African American women's writing in the period after black Americans were purportedly granted equal rights before the law".Abdur-Rahman, Aliyyah. ''Against the Closet: Identity, Political Longing, and Black Figuration''. Duke University Press: 2012, 117. In her close readings of late twentieth-century African-American literary texts, Abdur-Rahman's argues that writing about the trope of incest in black women's literature illuminates the continuing impact of slavery on the formation of black families in the post-civil rights period. Abdur-Rahman sees the incest motif as a site to "critique society for its egregious neglect of black women and children." By focusing on the time period of the late twentieth century, when ''Corregidora'' was written, Abdur-Rahman reads the employment of the incest motif as a critique on the masculinity inherent in black nationalism and its impact on the formation of black families. She writes, "I argue that representing incest allows black American women writers to highlight he effects of civil rights retrenchment and the waning popularity of a largely masculinist black nationalist agenda on black families in the late twentieth century." Throughout the novel, Ursa must navigate relationships of control over her body and sexuality imposed by different characters. Her relatives (Great-Gram, Gram and her mother) need her body to serve as a tool of procreation (''make generation)'' and produce a child that represents material evidence of the horrors of incest and rape they experienced during slavery at the hands of Simon Corregidora. The rape and incest that occurs between Great Gram, Gram and Simon can be read as complicating the notions of love and hate, desire and danger. Similarly, Ursa's relationship with her husband Mutt also straddles the line between the two sentiments. Mutt seeks to restrict Ursa's sexuality only for his enjoyment and pushes her down the stairs at the beginning of the novel because of his jealousy at other men staring at her on-stage performance while she sings the Blues. Her second husband, Tad, seeks to engage with Ursa's sexuality in a normative manner that illustrates his ability to provide sexual pleasure for her, despite her hysterectomy and modified sexual desire. Jones complicates notions of sexuality by showing how desire can exist in undesirable circumstances. Or as Ursa sees it, "Two humps on the same camel? Yes. Hate and desire both riding them" (102). Sparse in language, relying on terse dialogue and haunting interior monologues, the novel stands in the naturalist tradition as it shows individuals fighting with historical forces beyond their control. However, the end of the novel justifies its status as a "blues" narrative exploring both the pain and the beauty of relationships by implying that psychological struggle and an unsparing confrontation of the past may lead to recovery. When asked about the relationship between literate and oral traditions in ''Corregidora'' Jones said, "Ursa in ''Corregidora'' tells her own story in her own language and so does Eva in Eva's Man. I was interested in having their language do everything that anybody's language used as a literary language can do. But once after I gave a talk on ''Corregidora'', a professor (I should say a white professor) expressed surprise that I didn't talk like Ursa. That my vocabulary wasn't like hers. The implication of course was that I was more "articulate," at least within an accepted linguistic tradition. So because of that and because of other things—other comments about my language in those books—I've been wondering about my own voice—my other voice(s) and how it (they) relate to the voices of those women. I trust those voices, but always with black writers there's the suspicion that they can't create language/voices as other writers can—that they can't invent a linguistic world in the same way."

''Eva's Man''

''Eva's Man'' (1976), Jones's second novel, expands on the pain between

women and men, but it does so with an even greater sense of hopelessness. Like ''Corregidora'', ''Eva's Man'' relies on minimalist dialogue and on interior monologues, but the latter play an even more important role in Jones' second novel, letting the reader see Eva Medina Canada's past and her descent into mental illness, indicated through repetition of key scenes with variations, implying that Eva's memory disintegrates. The reader encounters Eva in a prison for the criminally insane at the beginning of the story, to which she has been committed for poisoning and castrating her lover. Her flashbacks reveal a life of relentless sexual objectification by men, starting with Freddy, a neighborhood boy who wants to play doctor, to Tyrone, her mother's lover who molests her, to her cousin, who propositions her. The men she encounters regard her as sexual property and react with violence if she rejects their approaches. Davis, the lover she kills, epitomizes this tendency by imprisoning her in a room to which he only comes to sleep with her. By killing him, she rebels against male tyranny, but her descent into insanity indicates that she is unable to construct a new role for herself.

''White Rat''

The stories in Jones' short story collection ''White Rat'' (1977), written between 1970 and 1977, deal largely with the same themes as her novels-communication or the lack of it, insanity, and difficult relationships. ''Song for Anninho'' (1981), a long narrative poem, covers new ground. Situated in 17th-century

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, the poem tells the story of Almeyda, the narrator, and her husband Anninho, who are residents of Palmares, a historical settlement by fugitive slaves, when it is overrun by

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

soldiers, separating husband and wife. Though Almeyda can only find her husband through memory and through art once they are separated, the poem focuses on desire as a positive theme, and it shows the possibility of love.

Awards and recognition

Her novel ''Palmares'' (2021), about "the largest and best known of Brazil's ''quilombos'', communities established by Africans who had escaped slavery", was a 2022

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

Finalist in Fiction. ''The Healing'' was a

finalist for fiction in 1998. In 2022, Jones was honored for lifetime achievement at 43rd annual American Book Awards, presented by

Ishmael Reed Ishmael Scott Reed (born February 22, 1938) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is '' M ...

Before Columbus Foundation The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...

. Her novel, ''The Birdcatcher'', was a

finalist for fiction in 2022.

References

External links

* Arlene R. Keizer
"Gayl Jones and the Postmodern Movement"
''Michigan Quarterly Review'', Volume XL, Issue 2, Spring 2001. Literary criticism of her work
Gayl Jones
at Goodreads
Deep Song by Gayl Jones
Transcript of a poem * Casey Howard Clabough

''The Southern Literary Journal'', The University of North Carolina Press, Volume 38, Number 2, Spring 2006, pp. 74–96. 10.1353/slj.2006.0003*