Four Way Books, 2019 eISBN: 978-1-945588-34-1 | Paper: 978-1-945588-30-3 Library of Congress Classification PS3608.A8656M35 2019 Dewey Decimal Classification 813.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Hatter’s artful, moving novel looks closely at the murder of a young black woman and her family’s devastation. Old—and new—questions about race and civil rights in 21st Century America arise alongside the unfolding story of Malawi and those who live in the wake of her loss.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi's Sisters, winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize, selected by Edwidge Danticat (Four Way Books, 2019), The Color of My Soul, winner of the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss. Her short stories have appeared in The Whistling Fire, Defying Gravity, TimBookTu, and Diverse Voices Quarterly. She was a runner-up winner in the Fiction category of the 2015 and 2016 Montgomery Writes contests sponsored by the Maryland Writers’ Association. She is a regular participant in the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Writers in Schools program in Washington, D.C., and serves on the board of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.
REVIEWS
"[Hatter] weave[s] the events of the story with the characters' pasts, unveiling their motivations, and encouraging readers to regard them with compassion, all while attempting to capture the energy of a larger social moment."
— Kirkus Reviews, Kirkus Reviews
"...When Hatter set her new novel in Washington’s Gold Coast and named its main characters Malawi, Ghana, and Kenya, I suspect she was saying, 'Make no mistake. What’s going on today in this place (America), in this time (now) is just as tragic as that historical mess.' She is also, by naming her characters after the countries that arose from that terrible era, declaring a proud heritage. And finally, she is evoking the centuries-long tension between blackness, all-that-glitters, and death....But Malawi’s Sisters is not without joy; it is no dreary story. The novel moves quickly, as its author has that rare gift of saying just enough to keep readers reading and giving enough to make them understand. We truly know the characters, and we believe them as they find agency in the midst of a terrible loss...."
— Sarah Trembath, The Washington Independent Review of Books
Four Way Books, 2019 eISBN: 978-1-945588-34-1 Paper: 978-1-945588-30-3
Hatter’s artful, moving novel looks closely at the murder of a young black woman and her family’s devastation. Old—and new—questions about race and civil rights in 21st Century America arise alongside the unfolding story of Malawi and those who live in the wake of her loss.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi's Sisters, winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize, selected by Edwidge Danticat (Four Way Books, 2019), The Color of My Soul, winner of the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss. Her short stories have appeared in The Whistling Fire, Defying Gravity, TimBookTu, and Diverse Voices Quarterly. She was a runner-up winner in the Fiction category of the 2015 and 2016 Montgomery Writes contests sponsored by the Maryland Writers’ Association. She is a regular participant in the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Writers in Schools program in Washington, D.C., and serves on the board of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.
REVIEWS
"[Hatter] weave[s] the events of the story with the characters' pasts, unveiling their motivations, and encouraging readers to regard them with compassion, all while attempting to capture the energy of a larger social moment."
— Kirkus Reviews, Kirkus Reviews
"...When Hatter set her new novel in Washington’s Gold Coast and named its main characters Malawi, Ghana, and Kenya, I suspect she was saying, 'Make no mistake. What’s going on today in this place (America), in this time (now) is just as tragic as that historical mess.' She is also, by naming her characters after the countries that arose from that terrible era, declaring a proud heritage. And finally, she is evoking the centuries-long tension between blackness, all-that-glitters, and death....But Malawi’s Sisters is not without joy; it is no dreary story. The novel moves quickly, as its author has that rare gift of saying just enough to keep readers reading and giving enough to make them understand. We truly know the characters, and we believe them as they find agency in the midst of a terrible loss...."
— Sarah Trembath, The Washington Independent Review of Books