Edward P. Jones | |
|---|---|
.png) Jones in 2004 | |
| Born | (1950-10-05)October 5, 1950 (age 75) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | College of the Holy Cross (BA) University of Virginia (MFA) |
| Genre | Narrative fiction |
| Subject |
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| Notable works | Lost in the City (1992) The Known World (2003) All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006) |
| Notable awards | PEN/Hemingway Award (1992) National Book Critics Circle Award (2003) Lannan Literary Award (2003) Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2004) MacArthur Fellowship (2004) International Dublin Literary Award (2005) PEN/Faulkner Award (2007) PEN/Malamud Award (2010) |
Edward Paul Jones (born October 5, 1950) is an American novelist and short story writer. He became popular for writing about theAfrican-American experience in the United States, and received thePulitzer Prize for Fiction and theInternational Dublin Literary Award forThe Known World (2003).
JournalistNeely Tucker described Jones inThe Washington Post as "arguably the greatest fiction writer the nation's capital has ever produced".[1] According to biographer Diane Brady ofFortune, Jones has been recognized "as one of the finest writers of his generation".[2] He has been a professor ofcreative writing at theUniversity of Virginia,George Mason University, theUniversity of Maryland, andPrinceton University. In 2010, Jones became a professor of literature atGeorge Washington University, where he was previously the Wang Visiting Professor in Contemporary English Literature.[3]
Jones was born inWashington, D.C., where he was raised in poorall-black neighborhoods.[4] When he was two years old, his father, aJamaican immigrant, left the family. Jones's mother, Jeanette M. Jones, had been pregnant at the time with a third child, Jones' sister Eunice, who eventually died oflung cancer in 1973.[5] Jones' only brother Joseph was bornmentally disabled.[6] The family resided in a series of impoverished shacks and tenements northwest of D.C.'s center, ultimately moving place-to-place 18 times in 18 years.[7]
Jones was recognized for talents inmathematics and literature as a child.[8] At the age of five, Jones was sent to aCatholic school, where his performance enabled him toskip a grade, but his mother could not afford the tuition and withdrew him.[9] He spent his early education at Walker-Jones Elementary School, Shaw Junior High School, then finally at the localCardozo High School,[8] where he performed well academically. Jones graduated as an honors student in English, although he had to sign his ownreport cards as his mother was illiterate.[10][11]
In the fall of 1968, Jones enrolled into theCollege of the Holy Cross with the initial intent to studymathematics.[12] He wrote for the school newspaper,The Crusader, and was a member of the college'sBlack Student Union along with classmatesClarence Thomas,Ted Wells, andEd Jenkins.[13] After taking a nineteenth-century novel class at the college, Jones found a passion for writing.[14] He graduated from Holy Cross with aBachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English in 1972.[15]
In 1979, Jones entered theUniversity of Virginia to pursue graduate studies in creative writing, receiving aMaster of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in 1981.[2][16]
His first book,Lost in the City (1992), is a collection of short stories about the African-American working class in 20th-century Washington, D.C. In the early stories are some who are like first-generation immigrants, as they have come to the city as part of theGreat Migration from the rural South.
His second book,The Known World, was set in a fictional Virginia county and had a protagonist who was a Black planter andslaveholder. It won the 2004Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2005International Dublin Literary Award.
Jones's third book,All Aunt Hagar's Children, was published in 2006. LikeLost in the City, it is a collection of short stories that deal with African Americans, mostly in Washington, D.C. Several of the stories had been previously published inThe New Yorker magazine. The stories in the book take up the lives of ancillary characters inLost in the City. In 2007, it was a finalist for thePEN/Faulkner Award, which was won byPhilip Roth'sEveryman.
The stories of Jones' first and third book are connected. AsWyatt Mason wrote inHarper's Magazine in 2006:
The fourteen stories ofAll Aunt Hagar's Children revisit not merely the city of Washington but the fourteen stories ofLost in the City. Each new story—and many of them, in their completeness, feel like fully realized little novels—is connected in the same sequence, as if umbilically, to the corresponding story in the first book. Literature is, of course, littered with sequels—its Rabbits and Bechs; its Zuckermans and Kepeshes—but this is not, in the main, Jones’s idea of a reprise. Each revisitation provides a different kind of interplay between the two collections.[17]
Neely Tucker wrote in 2009:
It's gone almost completely unnoticed, but the two collections are a matched set: There are 14 stories inLost, ordered from the youngest to the oldest character, and there are 14 stories inHagar's, also ordered from youngest to oldest character. The first story in the first book is connected to the first story in the second book, and so on. To get the full history of the characters, one must read the first story in each book, then go to the second story in each, and so on.[18]
In the spring and fall semesters of 2009, Jones was a visiting professor of creative writing at theGeorge Washington University.[19] In fall 2010 he joined the English department faculty to teach creative writing.[20]
