Tayari Jones is the author of the novels LEAVING ATLANTA, THE UNTELLING, SILVER SPARROW and AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times and Callaloo. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. SILVER SPARROW was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016.

Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa and Arizona State University. An Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University, she is spending the 2017-18 academic year as the Shearing Fellow for Distinguished Writers at the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Books by Tayari Jones

An American Marriage

by Tayari Jones - Fiction

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

Silver Sparrow

by Tayari Jones - Fiction

In a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, James Witherspoon has two families --- the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. 

The Untelling

by Tayari Jones - Fiction

Leaving Atlanta

by Tayari Jones - Fiction