Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones’s stock in esteemed literary markets soared seven years ago with the publication of her third novel, Silver Sparrow (Algonquin Books, 2011), her coming-of-age account of two half-sisters who are unknown to each other because of their bigamist father’s deceptions—but who are on a collision course to meet. Now, Jones—an associate professor of English at Rutgers University–Newark, where she is an instructor in its well-regarded M.F.A. in creative writing program—has produced the much-anticipated An American Marriage (Algonguin Books, 2018), which is already an Oprah's Book Club selection. The novel is Jones's love story about Roy and Celestial, an African-American couple living in the South and pursuing careers. Their young marriage is upended when Roy is wrongfully incarcerated, an abrupt turn of events that underscores the meaning of love and the devastation of racial injustice.