Paule Marshall

PAULE MARSHALL- WRITERS INK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

In this fiftieth anniversary year of our Independence, Writers Ink  is particularly proud to honour with a Lifetime Achievement Award, acclaimed novelist Paule Marshall, who is of Barbadian parentage.   

Paule Marshall was born April 9, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, to Barbadian parents. Christened Valenza Pauline Burke, she was educated at Girls High School, Brooklyn College (1953) and Hunter College, New York (1955.)

Paule Marshall is described as “ one of America’s finest contemporary black writers.” Her first novel, Brown Girl, Brownstones, is hailed as “a classic of 20^th century American literature.” The novel is further described as “both a moving account of the efforts of immigrants to surmount poverty and racism and a beautiful, powerful evocation of what it is to grow up black and female.” In 1965, she was chosen by Langston Hughes to accompany him on a State Department- sponsored world tour on which they both read their work. This is said to have helped her career considerably.

Awards:

*Guggenheim Fellowship 1960

*National Institute of Arts Award 1961

*Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award 1984

Works:

*Brown Girl, Brownstones (Random House, 1959; The Feminist Press, 1981)

*Soul Clap Hands and Sing (four short novels; Atheneum, 1961)

*The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (Harcourt, 1969)

*Reena and Other Stories (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1983)

*Praisesong for the Widow (Putnam, 1983)

*Merle: A Novella and Other Stories (Virago Press, 1985)

*Daughters (Atheneum, 1981)

*The Fisher King: A Novel (2001)

*Triangular Road: A memoir ( Basic Civitas Books, 2009)

Facts on Paule Marshall From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia