Imprint
- Virago
- Virago
- Virago
Palmares: A 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize.
Gayl Jones
Brazil, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Historical fiction
An epic tale of love and liberation set in seventeenth-century colonial Brazil. This acclaimed novel is the first book in over 20 years from a major voice in American literature.
A 2022 PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE
'A once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world' Yara Rodriguez Fowler, Guardian
'Astonishingly rich in character and incident, filled with magic and mystery' Sunday Times
'Intricate, mesmerizing and endlessly inventive and subversive' Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
'A story woven with extraordinary complexity, depth and skill', Robert Jones, Jr, author of The Prophets
AN EPIC TALE OF LOVE AND LIBERATION SET IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY COLONIAL BRAZIL
From plantation to plantation, Almeyda, a young slave girl, hears whispers, rumours of Palmares, a hidden settlement where fugitive slaves live free. But can this promised land exist? And what price is paid for 'freedom'?
In Palmares, Gayl Jones brings to life a world full of unforgettable characters, reimagining extraordinary historical events and combining them with mythology and magic. The result is a sweeping saga spanning a quarter of a century. Of Gayl Jones, the New Yorker noted, '[Her] great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them.' Like nothing else before it, Palmares embodies this gift.
Praise for Palmares: A 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize.
-
Palmares conjures up an epic quest for freedom and knowledge in 17th-century Brazil. The book's narrator is a young slave named Almeyda, who hears talk of Palmares, a place of refuge for the enslaved. Escaping there herself, she discovers love
-
with a fellow fugitive, but the community is destroyed by war and her lover disappears. Almeyda sets out in search of
-
him and of a new Palmares. Astonishingly rich in character and incident, filled with magic and mystery . . . always intriguing
-
- Sunday Times
-
Palmares reinvents 17th-century Black Brazil in all its multiplicity, beauty, humanity and chaos. It is a once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world - Guardian
-
Set in the17th century, Palmares is a sprawling, ambitious tale of racial struggle, Portuguese colonial rule, magical realism & mythology . . . a sublime feat of imagination - Independent
-
Palmares enfolds the reader in a bygone world, with a glance to our own, and has a great whispering lushness that is both magical and panoramic
-
A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers
-
Gayl Jones's work represents a watershed in American literature. From a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable; from a historical standpoint, she stands at the very cutting edge of understanding the modern world, and as a Black woman writer, her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humor, and incisiveness, is unmatched. Jones is a writer's writer, and her influence is found everywhere
-
Jones's feats of linguistic and historical invention are on ample display . . . Gayl Jones's new work is as relevant as ever. With monumental sweep, it blends psychological acuity and linguistic invention in a way that only a handful of writers in the transatlantic tradition have matched. She has boldly set out to convey racial struggle in its deep-seated and disorienting complexity - Jones sees the whole where most only see pieces - Atlantic
-
Tremendous. A masterfully absorbing, mythic work from a vital voice. The gods have conspired to gift us a new book from Gayl Jones and my what a gloriously eddying read
Find a book you’ll love, get our Word Up newsletter
.png?auto=compress&w=150&h=60&fit=crop&fm=jpg)
.png?auto=compress&w=150&h=60&fit=crop&fm=jpg)
Hachette Australia acknowledges and pays our respects to the past, present and future Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Our head office is located on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
