Tayari Jones

Like the character of Celestial An American Marriage, Tayari Jones received her undergraduate degree from Spelman College, a historically black college or university (HBCU) in Atlanta, Georgia. After graduating, she obtained a Master’s degree in English at the University of Iowa as well as a Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Arizona State University. She taught creative writing at the University of Illinoi and at George Washington University before joining the MFA faculty at Rutgers University Newark. She published three novels before An American Marriage: Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, and Silver Sparrow. An American Marriage was selected as a pick for Oprah’s Book Club in 2018.