Paule Marshall

Paule Marshall (1929–2019) was a MacArthur “genius,” a Guggenheim fellow, and the recipient of numerous other honors, including the American Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, and the Anisfield–Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. A member of “the Sisterhood” of Black women writers that included Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Alice Walker, she published five novels—Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959); The Chosen Place, the Timeless People (1969); Praisesong for the Widow (1983); Daughters (1991); and The Fisher King (2001)—as well as a collection of novellas, Soul Clap Hands and Sing (1961); a short-story collection, Reena and Other Stories (1983); and a memoir, Triangular Road (2009). Born and raised in Brooklyn to parents from Barbados, she died in Richmond, Virginia.