Gloria Naylor
Gloria Naylor (January 25, 1950–September 28, 2016) was born on January 25th, 1950 in New York City, the eldest of three daughters. Raised in New York City (the Bronx, Harlem, and Queens), Naylor graduated from high school in 1968 and received an English degree from CUNY-Brooklyn College in 1981, with a degree in English. While she was still a student at Brooklyn College, Naylor’s short story, “A Life on Beekman Place,” was accepted for publication in Essence magazine. Building on her first publishing success, Gloria Naylor finished writing her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place, in 1981 and used her advance to travel to Cadiz and Tangier, where she began work on her second novel, Linden Hills. She started a Master’s Degree in African American Studies at Yale University in 1981 and continued to work on Linden Hills as a thesis project, under the supervision of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; she graduated in 1983. The Women of Brewster Place, which recounts the interconnected lives of Black women living in a New York City apartment building, was published in 1982. It received the National Book Award for best first novel in 1983.
Working from her brownstone in Brooklyn, Naylor published her second novel, Linden Hills, in 1985, and her third novel, Mama Day, in 1988. With three acclaimed novels in print, Naylor was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and appointed as a Senior Fellow in the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University in 1988. Naylor published her fourth novel, Bailey’s Cafe, in 1992. Following the publication of Bailey’s Cafe, Gloria Naylor began work on what she originally planned to be her fifth book, a historical novel about the Sapphira Wade, the legendary ancestor of the main characters in Mama Day. During this period, Naylor did editorial work as well, as a contributing editor at the journal Callaloo and as editor of Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by African American Writers, 1967 to the Present (1996). Naylor published The Men of Brewster Place in 1998 followed by a “fictionalized memoir,” entitled 1996, in 2005 which describes the experiences of racist surveillance that drove her from St. Helena Island.
In addition to her novels, Gloria Naylor pursued theatrical, filmmaking, and television projects, as both a writer and producer. In 1989, Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place was adapted as a two-part television miniseries with Oprah Winfrey. Seeking to maintain more creative control over adaptations of her work, Naylor founded her own film production company, One Way Productions, in 1990. Gloria Naylor sold her Brooklyn brownstone and moved away from New York City in 2009. She died of heart failure near her home in Christiansted, St. Croix on September 28, 2016.
Adapted from Lehigh University
Archives
Gloria Naylor Archives, Sacred Heart University & Lehigh University →
Digital Resources
PBS American Masters Archival Footage →
Voices from the Gaps, University of Minnesota →
Gloria Naylor "Other Places" Digital Exhibit →
Added 1/24/23; Last updated 3/8/23