First published in 2003, The Known World by Edward P. Jones takes place in a fictional Virginia county during the antebellum era, where Henry Townsend, a mixed-race farmer and former slave, becomes the unlikely owner of a plantation and its accompanying chattel. When Henry dies, his widow is consumed by grief and slaves begin escaping the Townsend plantation under cover of night. Meanwhile the wider South roils under rumors of slave rebellions and free blacks are sold illegally into slavery--even families of slaves begin to turn against each other. An omniscient narrator weaves these threads into an intricate depiction of the institution of slavery and its destructive impacts on all levels of society. The Known World won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the International Dublin Literary Award, and was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Award.
Jones is also the author of Lost in the City (1992) and All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006), two interconnected collections of short stories about African Americans in Washington, D.C., where Jones was born and raised. He has also taught creative writing at George Washington University. The Known World is available in paperback from Amistad Press ($16.99), as are his two short story collections. --Tobias Mutter
