Background+and+Biography+of+Gloria+Naylor

** Gloria Naylor **



// "Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song." -Gloria Naylor //

Gloria Naylor was born in New York City on January 25, 1950 (Encyclopedia). She is the daughter of Roosevelt and Alberta McAlpin Naylor. When Gloria was old enough to sign her name, her mother began to take her to the library. Naylor became an enthusiastic reader and soon began to write poems and stories as a child. Naylor worked as missionary for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York, North Carolina, and Florida after she graduated high school in 1968 until 1975. The decision to serve as a missionary was greatly influenced by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Encyclopedia). In 1975, she returned to New York City and attended college while working as a hotel telephone operator. She pursued a BA in English at Brooklyn College, graduating in 1981. At Brooklyn, she was introduced to Toni Morrison’s work. Morrison became Naylor’s role model and Naylor used her work as a guide to better her own writing skills. She attended Yale University on a fellowship, receiving a MA in Afro-American studies in 1983. Her first novel, //The Women of Brewster Place//, was published in 1982. Her thesis for Yale resulted in her second novel, //Linden Hills,// published in 1985.
 * //Biography//**

Naylor’s career advanced in 1983 because of the recognition of //The Women of Brewster Place//, which was granted the American Book Award for Best First Novel (St. James Ecyclopedia). She also received the annual Distinguished Writer Award from the Mid-Atlantic Writers Association. In that same year, Naylor served as writer in residence at Cummington Community of the Arts and as a visiting lecturer at George Washington University. During the 1980s, she had various jobs including working as a cultural exchange lecturer in India for the United States Information Agency, and teaching at prestigious universities such as Yale, New York University, Princeton, Boston, and Cornell. Gloria Naylor’s many contributions to African American literature include her development of narrative technique and incorporation of the supernatural, both similar to those of her role model, Toni Morrison.

//**Additional Honors **// In 1985, she received the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. In 1986, she was awarded the Candace Award from the National Coalition of One Hundred Black Women. In 1988, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1989, the Lillian Smith Award.

=Principle Works of Gloria Naylor=

//Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present//, 1995 //The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories//, 1982 //Linden Hills//, 1985 //Mama Day//, 1988 //Bailey’s Café//, 1992 //The Men of Brewster Place//, 1998 //1996//, 2005 //Conversations with **Gloria** **Naylor**//, 2004 (2004) 
 * Edited text(s)**
 * Long Fiction**
 * Nonfiction**

W on the American Book Award for Best First Novel in 1983. 

Published in 1985

 Published in 1988

 Published in 1992 



Publications
Gloria Naylor emerged in the literary world in 1983 with her first novel, //The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories//, 1982 and followed by publishing her second in 1985 which was entitled //Linden Hills//. Naylor’s entrance into the forefront of literature was one that sought to represent the perspective of American black females .Although this entrance may have occurred at a different point in history than Toni Morrison’s, the two authors still often present similar goals and directions for black female authors throughout their works. Both Morrison as well as Naylor recognized the lack of literature based on this perspective that was often related to their own personal experiences in life. Both sought to fill this gap in the historical narrative timeline with their understandings of black female life, the hardships and the happiness.

Some works written by Naylor that are often discussed in scholarly settings include //The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories//, 1982, //Linden Hills//, 1985, and Mama Day, 1988. Some scholars argue that Naylor creates stereotypical characters and that her works are often memorable for this very reason. She has also been criticized for being “careless” with the historical details of her story. This however, seems up for interpretation. When a person decides to read fiction, which is what the majority of Naylor’s works consist of, this individual gives up request of full and total accuracy all of the time. If this were the case, wouldn’t this person be instead reading an encyclopedia or other nonfiction book? Other issues that surround the works of Naylor include feminism, romanticism, symbolism of place, and African American identity and struggle.



//**Works Cited**//

Branam, Harold. Gloria Naylor. Gloria Naylor Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition. 2007 Salem Press, Inc. http://web.ebscohost.com.www.lib.ncsu.edu:2048/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=107&sid= #db=lfh&AN=MOL9830000225. 10 Dec 2009. Found on Literary Reference Center Database.

 Encyclopedia of World Biography on Gloria Naylor. 2009. 11 Dec 2009. www.bookrags.com

Johnson, Troy //Gloria Naylor.// African American Literature Book Club, 2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2009 .

“Naylor, Gloria (1950--).” St. James Ecyclopedia of Popular Culture. 2006. 11 Dec 2009.