Mama Day

With a new introduction by Robert Jones, Jr, author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets

‘Gloria Naylor is a brilliant word-worker and a breathtaking story-teller. Mama Day is her masterpiece’ Tayari Jones

‘A sweeping, ambitious, gorgeous novel – takes you by the throat and refuses to let go. Mama Day is a stone-cold masterpiece’ Carmen Maria Machado

Between Georgia and South Carolina is an island you won’t find on any map. Only a single wooden bridge connects it to the world. In Willow Springs people still honour their ancestors, who arrived as slaves back in the time of Sapphira Wade, the ‘true conjure woman’ who set them all free.

It is said that Mama Day has inherited Sapphira’s power. She is a healer whose hands have delivered almost every soul on the island – and rumour has it that she can summon lightning storms. When Cocoa, her great-niece, returns to Willow Springs from New York, she brings her husband, George. But can Mama Day save them from the island’s darker powers?

Mama Day is a powerful story of love, belonging, magic and inheritance.

‘One of my favourite novels of all time. Naylor’s skill in weaving together culture, heartbreak, joy, magic, terror, laughter, pain, and love – which is to say, life – is extraordinary’ Robert Jones, Jr

‘Gloria Naylor’s exceptional books are deftly acute examinations of the beauty and tenacity of Black lives’ Irenosen Okojie

Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Imprint: Virago UK
Publication date: 10/12/2024
Series: Virago Modern Classics