Book of Night Women
A startling, hard-edged dissection of slavery and a tour de force of both voice and storytelling
'A story of such depth and humanity that you’ll want to spend hours picking apart the nuances even as you recover emotionally from this wrenching read.' Vogue
By the Man Booker-winning author Marlon James, this is the powerful story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the Night Women – a clandestine council of fierce slaves plotting an island-wide revolt – recognize a dark force in her that they treat with both reverence and fear. But as Lilith comes of age and begins to understand her own feelings and identity, she dares to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman. And as rebellions simmer and unspoken jealousies intensify, Lilith’s powers and sense of purpose threaten not just her own destiny, but the destinies of all the slave women in Jamaica.
MARLON JAMES was born in Jamaica. He is the author of The Book of Night Women (Oneworld, 2009), which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His debut novel, John Crow’s Devil (Oneworld, 2015), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld 2014), his third novel, won the Man Booker Prize, the American Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and featured in over twenty best books of the year lists. His short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Esquire and Granta. He teaches at Macalester College, Minnesota, USA.