Praise Song for the Widow

A beautiful hardcover reissue from one of Black literature's most important women writers - featuring a new introduction by Opal Palmer Adisa

Avey Johnson-a Black, middle-aged, middle-class widow given to hats, gloves, and pearls-has long since put behind her the Harlem of her childhood. Then on a cruise to the Caribbean with two friends, inspired by a troubling dream, she senses her life beginning to unravel-and in a panic packs her bag in the middle of the night and abandons her friends at the next port of call. The unexpected and beautiful adventure that follows provides Avey with the links to the culture and history she has so long disavowed.

Originally published in 1983, Praisesong for the Widow was a recipient of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, and is presented here in a beautiful new hardcover edition as the second title in McSweeney's Of the Diaspora series.

"Astonishingly moving." -Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review

About Of the Diaspora:
McSweeney's Of the Diaspora is a series of previously published works in Black literature whose themes, settings, characterizations, and conflicts evoke an experience, language, imagery and power born of the Middle Passage and the particular aesthetic which connects African-derived peoples to a shared artistic and ancestral past. The series is edited by writer Erica Vital-Lazare, a professor of Creative Writing and Marginalized Voices in Literature at the College of Southern Nevada. Published in collectible hardcover editions with original cover art by Sunra Thompson.