Gayl Jones facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Gayl Jones
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Jones in 1971
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| Born | Gayl Carolyn Jones November 23, 1949 Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. |
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| Education | Connecticut College (BA) Brown University (MA, DArts) |
| Genre | African-American literature |
| Notable works | Corregidora (1975) Eva's Man (1976) The Healing (1998) Palmares (2021) |
Gayl Carolyn Jones (born November 23, 1949) is an American writer from Lexington, Kentucky. She is recognized as a key figure in 20th-century African-American literature.
Jones published her debut novel, Corregidora (1975), at the age of 25. The book, edited by Toni Morrison, was met with critical acclaim and praised by leading intellectuals including James Baldwin and John Updike. Her sophomore novel Eva's Man was met with less renown. Jones continued publishing in the late 1990s, releasing The Healing and Mosquito—the former of which was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Following her husband's death 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.
Imani Perry described Jones as "one of the most versatile and transformative writers of the 20th century" while Calvin Baker described her as "The Best American Novelist Whose Name You May Not Know." In The Guardian 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."
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. She was academically successful and earned a recommendation, through writer Elizabeth Hardwick, to Connecticut College. There she became a student of poets William Meredith and Robert Hayden. She graduated in 1971, receiving her Bachelor of Arts 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 at Brown University, studying under poet Michael Harper and earning a Master of Arts in 1973 and a Doctor of Arts in 1975.
Career
Jones's mentor, Michael Harper, introduced her work to author Toni Morrison. Morrison was an editor at Random House at the time and was so impressed after reading Jones's manuscript that she 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, 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 and Amina Baraka) and Daughters of Africa (1992, edited by Margaret Busby).
Jones's 1998 novel The Healing was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. 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.
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 Finalist in Fiction.
The Healing was a National Book Award finalist for fiction in 1998.
In 2022, Jones was honored for lifetime achievement at 43rd annual American Book Awards, presented by Ishmael Reed's Before Columbus Foundation. Her novel, The Birdcatcher, was a National Book Award finalist for fiction in 2022.
Personal life
While studying at the University of Michigan, Jones met a politically active student, Robert Higgins, who would eventually become her husband. Since Higgins's death in 1998, Jones only talks to family and Harper and has refused several requests for interviews. Prior to this, Jones gave several interviews, including one with her mother in the pages of Obsidian and another in Claudia Tate's canonical anthology Black Women Writers.
See also
- African-American literature
