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Introduction
Gloria Naylor (born January 25, 1950) is an African American novelist and educator.
Early life
Born in New York, she was the first child to Roosevelt Naylor and Alberta McAlpin. During Naylor's childhood, her father worked as a transit worker and her mother as a telephone operator. From a young age, Naylor's mother encouraged her to read and keep a journal. Even though her mother had little education, she loved to read and often worked overtime in the fields as a sharecropper to produce enough money to join a book club.
In 1963 she moved to Queens with her family. Five years later Naylor followed in her mother's footsteps and became a Jehovah's Witness, but she left seven years later as ”things weren't getting better, but worse.”[1]
Education
Naylor earned her bachelor’s degree in English at Brooklyn College, after which she obtained a master’s degree in Afro–American Studies from Yale University.
Career
Naylor's novel The Women of Brewster Place was first published in 1982. It was adapted into a 1989 film of the same name by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions.
During her career as a professor, she taught writing and literature at several universities. She has taught at George Washington University, New York University, Boston University, and Cornell University.
Works
- The Women of Brewster Place (1982), ISBN 0-7868-6421-4; winner of the National Book Award in 1983
- Linden Hills (1985), ISBN 0-14008-829-6
- Mama Day (1988), ISBN 0-89919-716-7
- Bailey's Café (1992), ISBN 0-15-110450-6
- Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present (1995), ISBN 0-316-59926-3 (editor)
- The Men of Brewster Place (1999), ISBN 0-78688-405-3
- 1996 (2005), ISBN 0-88378-263-4
See also
- Prahlad, Sw. Anand. 1998. "All chickens come home to roost: The function of proverbs in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day." Proverbium 15: 265-282.
Drieling Claudia, 2011. Constructs of "Home" in Gloria Naylor's Quartet. ISBN 978-3-8260-4492-2, 325 pp., by Königshausen & Neumann, Germany, Würzburg.
Notes
- ^ Voices from the Gaps biography: Naylor, Gloria
External links
- Biography at aalbc.com
- Gloria Naylor at aaregistry.com
- Gloria Naylor at Watchtower Information Service
- Author profile at her publisher Random House
- Article "Award Winning Author Gloria Naylor Donates Archives to SHU" at sacredheart.edu
