Yrsa Daley-Ward will make her fiction debut with a novel to be published in Glory Edim’s Well-Read Black Girl x Liveright series.
Liveright will publish Daley-Ward’s The Catch, “the first in a collection of fiction debuts by BIPOC and non-binary voices all selected by Glory Edim.” There is no publication date for the novel yet.
Edim is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a creative community and reading network that was launched in 2015.
The novel will be the first work of fiction from Daley-Ward, the English poet and author of the nonfiction books The Terrible: A Storyteller’s Memoir and The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself. She is also known for co-writing Beyoncé’s 2020 musical film, Black Is King.
The novel follows twin sisters who are separated from their mother as children and, as adults, encounter a woman who seems to be an alternate version of her. Liveright calls the book “an empowering exploration of identity, motherhood, and the creative potential that lies within the hearts of Black women.”
“Motherhood and motherlessness are huge personal lands of interest to me,” Daley-Ward said in a statement. “I wanted to explore the effects of both on the psyche. I dream of my own mother all the time, who died at a relatively young age. It makes me think about what it might feel like to learn our mothers up close, pushing aside the distant, narrow filters through which we have cautiously observed them, staying far enough away to feel safe.”
And Edim said, “I’m beyond excited to announce our acquisition of Yrsa Daley-Ward’s debut fiction novel. To include her voice in Well-Read Black Girl’s first foray into publishing is an honor. Our new literary series is determined to introduce narratives that are innovative and beguilingly genuine. Daley-Ward’s writing fits the bill; the voices in her manuscript hovered over my head for days.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
