Butter: Novellas, Stories and Fragments

Description

'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE 'Gayl Jones is a literary legend' - Yara Rodrigues Fowler, author of THERE ARE MORE THINGS 'Her prose is intricate, mesmerizing, and endlessly inventive and subversive' Deesha Philyaw, author of THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES Gayl Jones, who was first edited by Toni Morrison, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century and was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Opening with the novella, Butter, this collection of short fiction displays Gayl Jones's legendary talents in a range of settings and styles, from the hyper-realist to the mystical. Her narrators are women and men, Black, brown, indigenous; her settings are historical and contemporary, in South America, Mexico and the US; her themes centre on complex identities and unorthodox longings and aspirations. She writes about spies, playground designers, cartoonists, and baristas, about workers and revolutionaries, about environmentalism, feminism, poetry, film and love - but above all about our multicultural society in all its facets. 'Every Jones publication is a major event, but this one is particularly precious . . . Jones's settings, which span time and geography, vary as much as the identities of her protagonists, which include women and men, Black, brown, and Indigenous people, artists and spies. The common threads are creativity and devastating insight' Oprah Daily, 'The Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2023'

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Corregidora, Eva's Man, The Healing, which was a National Book Award finalist, Palmares, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and The Birdcatcher, which was also a National Book Award Finalist.

Gayl Jones's work represents a watershed in American literature. From a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable; from a historical standpoint, she stands at the very cutting edge of understanding the modern world, and as a Black woman writer, her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humour, and incisiveness, is unmatched. Jones is a writer's writer, and her influence is found everywhere -- Imani Perry Her prose is intricate, mesmerizing, and endlessly inventive and subversive -- Deesha Philyaw, author of THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers -- Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE Gayl Jones is a literary legend -- Yara Rodrigues Fowler Jones's writing powerfully blends narrative and lyricism . . . Her imagination seems to thrive on outstripping one's expectations -- Margo Jefferson Every Jones publication is a major event, but this one is particularly precious. This wide ranging collection of short fiction is only the second by one of our most lauded literary authors. It includes two novella-length works and short stories that are diverse in every meaningful way possible. Jones's settings, which span time and geography, vary as much as the identities of her protagonists, which include women and men, Black, brown, and Indigenous people, artists and spies. The common threads are creativity and devastating insight * Oprah Daily, 'The Books We Cannot Wait to Read in 2023' *