Robert Jones, Jr., was born and raised in New York City. He received his BFA in creative writing with honors and MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. He has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review, Essence, OkayAfrica, The Feminist Wire, and The Grio. He is the creator of the social justice community Son of Baldwin, and was recently featured in T Magazine‘s cover story “Black Male Writers of Our Time.” The Prophets is his debut novel.
This Great Hemisphere (2024) Mateo Askaripour "Mateo Askaripour's This Great Hemisphere is a wildly imaginative novel, bursting with cinematic fervor. The world-building here is meticulous and astounding. The characters are so well-realized that they haunt the heart, motivate the mind, and shake the soul. The story itself strikes the perfect balance between wisdom and warning. I can't help but to think that the spirit of the great prophet Octavia Butler hovers over This Great Hemisphere. And quiet as it's kept, Mateo Askaripour just might be that level of oracle, too. This is a fiery must-read."
Cinema Love (2024) Jiaming Tang "Gentle and fierce, heartbreaking without sacrificing its sense of humor, Jiaming Tang's Cinema Love perfectly mines the difficult-to-reach space between agony and pleasure. I have never read anything like it, but my most secret parts have always longed to know the hidden truths it reveals. Guided through these shadowy and sorrowful places by Tang's plush and vivid prose, I found myself breathless until the very end - and even then barely able to exhale. This is the unforgettable work of a patient master."
Anita de Monte Laughs Last (2024) Xochitl Gonzalez "Funny, piercing, and full of moxie, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is unsparing in its assessment of what goes on behind the castle walls, the price people pay to be accepted into those hallowed halls, and what it takes to liberate oneself from the dangers that lurk within. Really, what Xochitl Gonzalez has written is an affirmation for anyone who's ever had to 'work twice as hard to get half as much.' Anita de Monte Laughs Last is rollicking, melodic, tender, and true. And oh so very wise."
The Lookback Window (2023) Kyle Dillon Hertz "Kyle Dillon Hertz's The Lookback Window is fearless, by which I mean vulnerable. Sentence by sentence, it moves along with a fierce and psychedelic honesty reminiscent of Joan Didion's best work. I'm amazed by how much beauty and humor Hertz is able to mine from the most harrowing of circumstances. There's a multi-level testimony - and indictment - here for those brave enough to face it. The Lookback Window is audacious, scandalous, and startling in ways that can only be properly conveyed by a pen as careful and compassionate as Hertz's. A gutsy, unflinching debut."
An Autobiography of Skin (2023) Lakiesha Carr "I was stunned by Lakiesha Carr's preciseness of memory; how she remembers things that most people do not - the ancient things, the careless things, the shameful things - because forgetting feels better. It's courageous to give them voice; and not just any voice, but a singsongy one, like a blues or a gospel. So beautifully crafted, An Autobiography of Skin is a dangerous and needed magic, both frightening and joyful in its conjuring."
All This Could Be Different (2022) Sarah Thankam Mathews "Sarah Thankam Mathews's All This Could Be Different is a deeply honest and compelling testimony. It is breathtaking in its beauty and profound in its meaning. Mathews captures the complexities, contradictions, and dissonances of life with astounding aplomb and care. All This Could Be Different is quietly epic."
Brother Alive (2022) Zain Khalid "A rigorously intelligent, wholly sensitive and quietly rebellious work of art, with prose as profound as it is beautiful. What an inspiring examination of the waywardness of life and the grounding of love this story is. What a wise, thoughtful writer Zain Khalid is. What a gift to humanity this book is."
Neruda on the Park (2022) Cleyvis Natera "Neruda on the Park is a book so honest, so implicating, so liberating that it is at once beautiful and terrifying. . . . A loud triumph that caresses like a whisper."
Take My Hand (2022) Dolen Perkins-Valdez "When you know Dolan Perkins-Valdez is writing a book, you know that it is going to be a spectacular thing. And that is the case with Take My Hand. Conveyed as softly as a familial conversation, this is a work that makes difficult things endurable. Perkins-Valdez relays untold pain honestly, astutely, but most of all, gently, like a sage would. That is another way of saying that she crafts this book with great truth and wisdom. As a result, Take My Hand is the kind of rare, elevating, illuminating, useful art that we would all do well to grasp for dear life."
Memphis (2022) Tara M Stringfellow "An evocative, compelling tale . . . Tara M Stringfellow assembles an endearing and unforgettable cast of characters who find strength in vulnerability, safety in art, and liberation in telling the truth. This is a shining, splendid testimony in the vein of Gloria Naylor, Delores Phillips, Ayana Mathis, and Honoree Jeffers."
When We Were Birds (2022) Ayanna Lloyd Banwo "Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's When We Were Birds is crafted from the very essence of memory, the long memory, which can only be drawn from the mind and translated into the written word by someone with Banwo's lyrical mastery. Heartwarming and heartbreaking, fantastical and familiar, with characters that burrow their way into your heart and mind with their tragedies and triumphs, When We Were Birds more than sings, more than beams. It is the kind of story that makes you want to spread your arms open wide, embrace the sky, and take flight in your own little way. It is glorious."
The School for Good Mothers (2021) Jessamine Chan "Jessamine Chan captures, in heartbreaking tones, the exacting price women pay in a patriarchal society that despises them, that reduces their worth to their viability for procreation and capacity for mothering. The School for Good Mothers is not so much a warning for some possible dystopian nightmare as much as it is an alarm announcing that the nightmare is here. The book is, thus, a weeping testimony, a haunting song, and a piercing rebuke of both the misogynist social order and the traps it lays for women, girls, and femmes. Good Mothers deserves an honored place next to the works of Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler."
