Ayana Mathis is afgestudeerd aan de Iowa Writers’ Workshop en een ontvanger van de Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. Haar debuutroman verkent de ingewikkelde familiedynamiek en de blijvende erfenis van het Afro-Amerikaanse leven. Mathis' proza staat bekend om zijn indringende inzichten en emotionele resonantie, en biedt lezers een diep inzicht in de menselijke ervaring.
Hattie Shephard finds that her American dream is shattered time and again: a husband who lies and cheats and nine children raised in a cramped little house that was only ever supposed to be temporary
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2.0 SELECTION • "A remarkable page-turner of a novel." —Chicago Tribune In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd, swept up by the tides of the Great Migration, flees Georgia and heads north. This "brutal, illuminating version of the twentieth century African-American experience belongs alongside those of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston" (Newsday). Full of hope, Hattie settles in Philadelphia to build a better life. Instead she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment, and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins are lost to an illness that a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit, mettle, and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them to meet a world that will not be kind. Their lives, captured here in twelve luminous threads, tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage—and a nation's tumultuous journey. Don't miss Ayana Matthis's new novel, The Unsettled coming soon!
The Unsettled has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
In "Bonaparte, Alabama, 1985" kämpft Dutchess Carson um den letzten Grundbesitz ihrer schwarzen Genossenschaft, während ihre Tochter Ava in Philadelphia einer radikalen Kommune folgt. Ihr Sohn Toussaint sehnt sich nach seiner Großmutter. Mathis verknüpft die Schicksale der drei Generationen mit der Black History und thematisiert Erbe, Mutterschaft und Utopien.