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Corregidora

By Gayl Jones
Series: Virago Modern Classics
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Brief Description
No novel about any Black woman could ever be the same after this' TONI MORRISON I dreamed with my eyes open. All the Corregidora women with narrow waists and high cheekbones and wide hips. All the Corregidora women dancing. Blues singer Ursa is consumed by her... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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A powerful, influential novel, praised by writers including Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and Maya Angelou. Long out of print, this lost classic is republished for a new generation, and now reissued as part of the VMC Green Spine launch.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

No novel about any Black woman could ever be the same after this' TONI MORRISON

I dreamed with my eyes open. All the Corregidora women with narrow waists and high cheekbones and wide hips. All the Corregidora women dancing.

Blues singer Ursa is consumed by her hatred of Corregidora, the nineteenth-century slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother. Charged with 'making generations' to bear witness to this legacy of abuse, Ursa must confront her family history after a fight with her husband leaves her unable to have children. Haunted by the ghosts of a Brazilian plantation, pained by the fractured relationships of her present, she slowly and firmly strikes her own terms with womanhood.

Upon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and John Updike. Exploring themes such as race, sexuality and the long repercussions of slavery, this powerful novel paved the way for Beloved and The Colour Purple.

Corregidora is the most brutally honest and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women' JAMES BALDWIN

'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' TAYARI JONES

'An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood' JOHN UPDIKE, NEW YORKER

Series: Virago Modern Classics

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780349019574

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 January 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Virago Press Ltd

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 126.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 169g

Pages: 208

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Education & Reference Fiction Gayl Jones General Fiction Literary Fiction Series: Virago Modern Classics

About the Author

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Corregidora (1975), Eva's Man (1976), The Healing (1998), which was a National Book Award finalist, Palmares (2021), which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and The Birdcatcher (2022), which was also a National Book Award Finalist.

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