Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558614987
Publication Date: 07-01-2006

Foreword by Edwidge Danticat
Afterword by Mary Helen Washington

Set in Brooklyn during the Great Depression and World War II, Brown Girl, Brownstones chronicles the efforts of Barbadian immigrants to surmount poverty and racism and to make their new country home. Selina Boyce is torn between the opposing aspirations of her parents: her hardworking, ambitious mother longs to buy a brownstone row house while her easygoing father prefers to dream of effortless success and his native island’s lushness.

 Featuring a new foreword by Edwidge Danticat, this coming-of-age tale grapples with identity, sexuality, and changing values in a new country, as a young woman must reconcile tradition with potential and change.

"Remarkable for its colorful characters, the cadence of its dialogue and its evocation of a still-lingering past." —New York Times Book Review

"Marshall brings to her characters . . . an instinctive understanding, a generosity and free humor that combine to form a style remarkable for its courage, its color, and its natural control." —The New Yorker

"An unforgettable novel written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears." —New York Herald Tribune