Gloria Naylor

Gloria Naylor, born in 1950, American author, acclaimed for her exploration of issues of community and cultural identity among African American men and women. Her lyrical voice has established her as a leading figure in the current flowering of black women’s writing. The Women of Brewster Place (1982), her first novel, won a National Book Award for best first novel.

The daughter of a transit worker and a telephone operator, Naylor was born in New York City. She worked her way through Brooklyn College before receiving a master’s degree in African American studies at Yale University in 1983. Naylor then served as a contributing editor for the African American studies journal Callaloo in 1984, and as a columnist for the New York Times in 1986. In 1985 she worked in India as a cultural exchange lecturer for the United States Information Agency, an independent agency of the U.S. government.

The Women of Brewster Place quickly became a bestseller and was adapted for television in 1989. The book follows seven women’s lives in an urban housing development, exploring how such issues as class and sexual orientation both unite women and divide them. The women of Brewster Place overcome their individual differences and unite to dismantle a wall—which symbolizes racism—that separates them from the rest of the city. Linden Hills (1985) maps out an isolated community of wealthy blacks, using the Inferno from The Divine Comedy (1307-1321) of Italian writer Dante Alighieri as a model for the story. Mama Day (1988) examines how a young woman learns to value her heritage as she reconciles with Mama Day, a spiritual leader with strong ties to African religious traditions. Bailey’s Cafe (1992) describes a mythical place rooted in allegory and humor that serves as a refuge for those with rich and fantastic histories. In 1998 Naylor revisited the Brewster Place neighborhood with The Men of Brewster Place, which chronicles the lives of the men living there.

A producer and playwright as well as a novelist, Naylor has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1985) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1988). She has taught writing and literature at several universities.