Paule Marshall Books in Order

Growing up in a Barbadian immigrant family in Brooklyn, Selina Boyce navigates her parents' conflicting dreams of property, prosperity, and home. Against depression and war, she struggles to reconcile inherited expectations with her own developing identity and desires.

Four aging men in different settings confront the loneliness left by their pursuit of success, security, possessions, or prestige. Encounters with women challenge each to recognize what he has sacrificed and consider whether his remaining life can hold deeper meaning.

An American research team arrives in an impoverished Caribbean community shaped by the legacy of enslavement. Relationships between visitors and residents expose tensions of race, wealth, history, and authority, challenging the assumptions behind an ambitious development project.

Middle-class widow Avey Johnson abandons a Caribbean cruise after a troubling dream unsettles the life she has carefully constructed. Her unexpected journey draws her toward cultural traditions and personal history she has long tried to leave behind.

An autobiographical essay about the storytelling women who shaped Paule Marshall introduces this collection of short fiction. Moving between Brooklyn and Barbados, the stories explore women's lives, cultural memory, and the language used to resist oppression and invisibility.

Decades after jazz pianist Sonny-Rett Payne fled racism and family disapproval for Paris, his young grandson visits Brooklyn for a memorial concert. The child's arrival exposes old rivalries and offers four generations of a divided family a possible path toward reconciliation.

Paule Marshall recalls her emergence as a writer during the 1960s, including a European tour with Langston Hughes. Journeys through Europe, Barbados, and Africa deepen her understanding of the African diaspora and strengthen her purpose within a predominantly white literary world.