The Unicorn Woman

''A literary giant'' TAYARI JONES

A richly imaginative and moving new novel from the Pulitzer finalist and acclaimed author of Corregidora

A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he''s a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he''s a man on a quest: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.

Returning from the Second World War not to a hero''s welcome, but to the discrimination of the Jim Crow laws, Buddy stumbles across the Unicorn Woman, a carnival sideshow with a horn growing from her forehead, whose strange beauty he can''t forget.

As he drifts across the South, from Kentucky to Memphis, Buddy encounters a dazzling array of almost mythic characters: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists and bigots - dreaming all the while of the unforgettable Unicorn Woman herself.

With her inimitable eye for beauty, tragedy and humour, Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of the Black imagination in a time of frustration and hope.

''Her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humour, and incisiveness, is unmatched'' IMANI PERRY

''Gayl Jones is enjoying a dazzling late-career renaissance'' SUZI FEAY, TLS

''Intricate, mesmerising and endlessly inventive'' DEESHA PHILYAW