Content Warning: This section mentions racism, death and murder, anti-gay bias, and sexual violence.

Born in New York City in 1950, Gloria Naylor was an American writer and key figure in African American literature. Her parents were former sharecroppers from Mississippi who moved north looking for a better life. Despite having little education, Naylor’s mother always encouraged her daughter to read and write. She excelled in school but postponed a college education to become a Jehovah’s Witness missionary. Naylor spent several years working in Florida, North Carolina, and New York before enrolling in Medgar Evers College in 1975. Naylor initially studied nursing before switching to English. In her college English classes, Naylor encountered the work of great female African American writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 1981 and completed a master’s degree in African American studies at Yale University.

Naylor published her debut novel, The Women of Brewster Place, in 1982. The novel won the National Book Award and quickly became a classic of African American literature, earning Naylor praise for her lyrical prose and unique narrative techniques.