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Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection and also appeared on Barack Obama's summer reading list and his year-end roundup. It won the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an NAACP Image Award and has been published in two dozen countries. Jones is the C.H. Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and lives in Atlanta.
Tayari Jones's website
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Interview by By Tia Guerrier
In her new novel Kin, critically acclaimed author Tayari Jones traces the life-altering bond between two girls growing up in the South in the 1950s. What begins with shared loss deepens into a friendship sustained by devotion, shaped by community, and marked by the ache and mythology of motherhood. We spoke with Tayari about writing Vernice and Annie, the truths that challenge stereotypes, and why she believes every story is ultimately about relationships.
Tia Guerrier: I want to jump right in with Vernice and Annie. Their lives are shaped by loss, and I felt the care you put into informing their characters. What inspired you to begin the novel with their bond, and how did you decide where to place the emotional weight in their early years?
Tayari Jones: I agree their lives are shaped by loss, but they are also shaped by love, right? Their love for each other. The fact that they both lost their mothers is the catalyst for their relationship. That's where it starts. But everything in their lives is maintained by their love, because friendship is a relationship that we have to re-up on constantly.
With family, people say you can't choose your family. That's true. But friendship involves so much ...
Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960, at the age of ten. She is the author of numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including her beloved first novel, How the García Girls ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
An American Marriage
Try:
Afterlife
by Julia Alvarez
Jamel Brinkley is the author of Witness: Stories, published in August 2023 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US)/4th Estate (UK), and A Lucky Man: Stories (2018, Graywolf Press), which was a finalist for the National Book Award... (more)
If you enjoyed:
An American Marriage
Try:
A Lucky Man
by Jamel Brinkley
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