“It’s among Tayari’s many gifts that she can touch us soul to soul with her words.”
— OPRAH WINFREY

“Tayari Jones is blessed with vision to see through to the surprising and devastating truths at the heart of ordinary lives, strength to wrest those truths free, and a gift of language to lay it all out, compelling and clear. That has been true from her very first book, but with An American Marriage that vision, that strength and that truth-telling voice have found a new level of artistry and power.”
—MICHAEL CHABON, author of Moonglow: A Novel

“I love An American Marriage and I’m so excited for this book to be in the world. Tayari’s novel is timely, thoughtful, and beautifully written. Reading it, I found myself angry as hell, laughing out loud, choking up and cheering. A gem of a book.”
—JACQUELINE WOODSON, author of Brown Girl Dreaming

“Tayari Jones is a great storyteller. An American Marriage holds the reader from first page to last, with her compassionate observation, her clear-eyed insight and her beautifully written and complex characters. Jones understands love and loss and writes with passion and precision about the forces that move us all from one to another.”
—AMY BLOOM, bestselling author of Lucky Us

“An American Marriage asks hard questions about injustice and betrayal, and answers them with a heartbreaking and genuinely suspenseful love story in which nobody’s wrong and everybody’s wounded. Tayari Jones has written a complex and important novel about people trapped in a tragic situation, struggling to reconcile their responsibilities and desires.”
—TOM PERROTTA, author of The Leftovers

“Tayari Jones’ American Marriage is a stunning epic love story filled with breathtaking twists and turns, while bursting with realized and unrealized dreams. Skillfully crafted and beautifully written, American Marriage is an exquisite, timely, and powerful novel that feels both urgent and indispensable.”
—EDWIDGE DANTICAT, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory

  • Tayari Jones named 2011-12 Radcliffe Institute Fellow

    Tayari Jones will spend the 2011-12 year at Harvard University as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for the academic year 2011-12. Chosen from over 800 applications, she will join a select group of fifty fellows.  Each has a record of significant accomplishment and demonstrated interest in participating in the multi-disciplinary environment of the Radcliffe Fellowship Program. Next year’s fellows come from across the country and around the world, women and men at different stages of their careers, representing different academic, professional and artistic fields. 

    While at Radcliffe, she will work on a new novel.

  • Silver Sparrow is #1 Indie Next Pick For June

    The American Booksellers Association has chosen Silver Sparrow as the #1 Indie Next Pick for the month of June.  According to the ABA website, “The Indie Next List, drawn from bookseller-recommended favorite handsells, epitomizes the heart and soul of passionate bookselling. Independent booksellers are and have always been discoverers of the next big thing, the next great read, the next bestseller, and the next undiscovered gem.”

    In her endorsement of Silver Sparrow, Libby Cowles of Maria’s Bookshop writes: “The unconventional, morally troubling relationships at the core of Jones’ Silver Sparrow illustrate the universality of the human quest for acknowledgment, legitimacy, love, and loyalty. As Chaurisse and her secret half-sister, Dana, move toward adulthood, they must shed idealistic notions of romantic and familial love to face difficult truths. A complex family drama, a richly crafted coming-of-age story, and a meditation on the nature of love and forgiveness, this is a gripping story with characters you will not soon forget.”

  • Rutgers Honors Tayari Jones

    Tayari Jones, Associate Professor, was honored by Rutgers University today in a ceremony on the New Brunswick campus. She received the Board of Trustees Award for Scholarly Excellence, the Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, a Leader in Faculty Diversity Award. The awards are accompanyed by research grants which will assist Jones in the completion of her next novel.