The chosen place is Bourneville, a remote, devastated part of a Caribbean island; the timeless people are its inhabitants--black, poor, inextricably linked to their past enslavement. When the advance team for an ambitious American research project arrives, the tense, ambivalent relationships that evolve, between natives and foreigners, black and whites, haves and have-nots, keenly dramatize the vicissitudes of power.

"An important and moving book . . . Marshall is as wise as she is bold, for in compromising neither her politics nor her understanding of people, she makes better sense of...

"Astonishingly moving."--Anne Tyler, New York Times Book Review

"A work of exceptional wisdom, maturity, and generosity, one in which the palpable humanity of its characters transcends any considerations of race or sex."--Washington Post Book World

"There is no limit to the kind of readership to which this novel will appeal."--Booklist

Avey Johnson--a black, middle-aged, middle-class widow given to hats, gloves, and pearls--has long since put behind her the Harlem of her childhood. Then on a cruise to the Caribbean with two friends, inspired by a troubling...

"An unforgettable novel, written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears." -- Herald Tribune Book Review"Passionate, compelling . . . an impressive accomplishment." -- Saturday Review"Remarkable for its courage, its color, and its natural control." -- The New Yorker
Selina's mother wants to stay in Brooklyn and earn enough money to buy a brownstone row house, but her father dreams only of returning to his island home. Torn between a romantic nostalgia for the past and a driving ambition for the future, Selina also faces the everyday burdens of poverty and...

In Triangular Road, famed novelist Paule Marshall tells the story of her years as a fledgling young writer in the 1960s. A memoir of self-discovery, it also offers an affectionate tribute to the inimitable Langston Hughes, who entered Marshall's life during a crucial phase and introduced her to the world of European letters during a whirlwind tour of the continent. In the course of her journeys to Europe, Barbados, and eventually Africa, Marshall comes to comprehend the historical enormity of the African diaspora, an understanding that fortifies her sense of purpose as a writer.

In...

2014 Reprint of 1959 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Brown Girl, Brownstones is the first novel by the internationally recognized writer Paule Marshall, published in 1959. It is about Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York. The book gained widespread recognition after it was reprinted in 1981. The somewhat autobiographical story describes the life of Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn during the Great Depression and then in World War II. The primary characters include Selina and Ina Boyce and their parents, who suffer from...

2016 Reprint of 1961 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "These four long stories, published a scant two years after Brown Girl, Brown- a promising but young and personal first novel, reveal a talent astonishingly matured. Mrs. Marshall, a Negro, has suddenly expanded a private sense of race and color into enormously wide, almost mystic, sense of the shimmering chiaroscuro of life itself in its mixed moods and human destinies. The stories take place in Barbados, Brooklyn, British Guiana and Brazil and concern people of various...