ISABEL WILKERSON won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her reporting as Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. The award made her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. She won the George Polk Award for her coverage of the Midwest and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for her research into the Great Migration. She has lectured on narrative writing at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University and has served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and as the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University. She is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. During the Great Migration, her parents journeyed from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington, D.C., where she was born and reared. This is her first book.
“A landmark piece of nonfiction . . . [Isabel Wilkerson’s]
closeness with, and profound affection for, her subjects reflect
her deep immersion in their stories and allow the reader to share
that connection.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“A brilliant and stirring epic, the first book to cover the full
half-century of the Great Migration . . . Wilkerson combines
impressive research . . . with great narrative and literary power.
Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did
for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she
humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological
depth.”—John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal
“[A] massive and masterly account of the Great Migration . . . a
narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of
scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future
place on Oprah’s couch.”—David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book
Review
“[A] deeply affecting, finely crafted and heroic book . . .
This is narrative nonfiction, lyrical and tragic and fatalist. The
story exposes; the story moves; the story ends. What Wilkerson
urges, finally, isn’t argument at all; it’s compassion. Hush, and
listen.”—Jill Lepore, The New Yorker
“Told in a voice that echoes the magic cadences of Toni Morrison or
the folk wisdom of Zora Neale Hurston’s collected oral histories,
Wilkerson’s book pulls not just the expanse of the migration into
focus but its overall impact on politics, literature, music,
sports—in the nation and the world.”—Lynell George, Los Angeles
Times
“[An] extraordinary and evocative work.”—The Washington Post
“Mesmerizing.”—Chicago Tribune
“Scholarly but very readable, this book, for all its rigor, is so
absorbing, it should come with a caveat: Pick it up only when you
can lose yourself entirely.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
"[An] indelible and compulsively readable portrait of race, class,
and politics in twentieth-century America. History is rarely
distilled so finely.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Astonishing . . . Isabel Wilkerson delivers! . . . With the
precision of a surgeon, Wilkerson illuminates the stories of bold,
faceless African-Americans who transformed cities and industries
with their hard work and determination to provide their children
with better lives.”—Essence
“Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read.”—Toni
Morrison
“A sweeping and yet deeply personal tale of America’s hidden
twenteith-century history. This is an epic for all Americans who
want to understand the making of our modern nation.”—Tom Brokaw
“A seminal work of narrative nonfiction . . . You will never
forget these people.”—Gay Talese
“This book will be long remembered, and savored.”—Jon Meacham
“A masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a
great people. Don’t miss it!”—Cornel West
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