The Birds of Opulence

Author(s):
Crystal Wilkinson
Book summary:

In this novel four generations of women confront life and love in small-town Opulence, Kentucky weaving their family's portion of a southern black American community's fabric.

Publication year:
2016
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
Award(s):
Ernest J. Gaines Award for Excellence
Weatherford Award
Appalachian Book of the Year
Judy Gaines Award
Praise:
Quote:
Lyrical and visionary, unconventional, and infused with beauty.
Credit:
Maurice Manning, author of The Common Man, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
Quote:
Those birds. . . . They swoop down on and around Opulence, Kentucky, proffering a sweeping perspective of more than three decades that’s both grand and intimate. Yes, they are all here, several generations of women - Minnie Mae, Tookie, Lucy, Francine, Yolanda, and Mona - and there are a few good men, too, each and every one of them indelible. Burnished with Wilkinson’s stunning prose, The Birds of Opulence is golden and magnificent.
Credit:
Robin Lippincott, author of Blue Territory, and In the Meantime
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Crystal Wilkinson is the award-winning author of The Birds of Opulence (winner of the 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence), Water Street and Blackberries, Blackberries. Nominated for both the Orange Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, she has received recognition from The Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Kentucky Arts Council, The Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and is a recipient of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including most recently in the Oxford American and Southern Cultures. She currently teaches at the University of Kentucky where she is Associate Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing Program.
Book URL:
https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=4840#.XBkV12hKizw