
Conjure Women
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Adenrele Ojo
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By:
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Afia Atakora
About this listen
A mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing—and for the conjuring of curses—are at the heart of this dazzling first novel
WINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • NPR • Parade • Book Riot • PopMatters
“Lush, irresistible . . . It took me into the hearts of women I could otherwise never know. I was transported.”—Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of White Houses and Away
Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom.
Magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined, Conjure Women moves back and forth in time to tell the haunting story of Rue, Varina, and May Belle, their passions and friendships, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love.
LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
“[A] haunting, promising debut . . . Through complex characters and bewitching prose, Atakora offers a stirring portrait of the power conferred between the enslaved women. This powerful tale of moral ambiguity amid inarguable injustice stands with Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An engrossing debut . . . Atakora structures a plot with plenty of satisfying twists. Life in the immediate aftermath of slavery is powerfully rendered in this impressive first novel.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
©2020 Afia Atakora (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Afia Atakora brings the Civil War South to life so beautifully with Conjure Women, a heartbreaking joy to read.”—Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls
“If you are grieving for Toni Morrison, Afia Atakora is the young writer to read now: the kind of historical novelist who makes you believe she must have somehow seen the places she describes and known these characters herself. Her astonishing debut takes the reader to a Reconstruction-era Southern plantation, where two little girls—the enslaved child of the local healer and the planter’s cloistered daughter—become unlikely friends. Conjure Women illuminates an unfamiliar corner of Civil War history and brings to life an indelible character whose talents, from midwifery to voodoo, will yield her own unconventional path to power and freedom.”—Nell Freudenberger, author of Lost and Wanted
“In Conjure Women Afia Atakora masterfully centers two generations of women, folk healers who carry the secrets of their community while bearing the brunt of its antebellum past and its reconstructed present. Telling a gripping story at once grand and intimate, Atakora renders humanity in all its beautiful fits and flaws. Page after page, her voice announces itself like a thunderclap. The women in this novel will blessedly stick with you long after the last word has been read.”—Caleb Johnson, author of Treeborne
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Story
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales.
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Great Writer - Great Reader
- By Avid Listener on 09-09-20
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The Book of Night Women
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the 18th century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they - and she - will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans.
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"A lyrical, heart thumping, engaging masterpiece"
- By ann on 01-07-11
By: Marlon James
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The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
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We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
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My Soul to Keep
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost.
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A Book I Can't Keep
- By Mistsofjade on 07-19-20
By: Tananarive Due
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Black Candle Women
- A Novel
- By: Diane Marie Brown
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when seventeen-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies.
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Easy Listen
- By Precious T. on 06-14-23
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The American Queen
- By: Vanessa Miller
- Narrated by: Angel Pean
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Transformative and breathtakingly honest, The American Queen is based on actual events that occurred between 1865 - 1889 and shares the unsung history of a Black woman who built a kingdom in Appalachia as a refuge for the courageous people who dared to dream of a different way of life. Over the twenty-four years she was enslaved on the Montgomery Plantation, Louella learned to feel one thing: hate. Hate for the man who sold her mother. Hate for the overseer who left her daddy to hang from a noose. Hate so powerful there's no room in her heart for love.
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The life of the Queen
- By R. Dameron on 03-26-24
By: Vanessa Miller
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The Year of the Witching
- By: Alexis Henderson
- Narrated by: Brianna Colette
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother's union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches.
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Meh
- By Elizabeth F. Therneau on 09-15-20
By: Alexis Henderson
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Homegoing
- A Novel
- By: Yaa Gyasi
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and will live in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising children who will be sent abroad to be educated before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the empire. Esi, imprisoned beneath Effia in the castle's women's dungeon and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, will be sold into slavery.
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A Novel in Stories
- By Daryl on 06-19-16
By: Yaa Gyasi
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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
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The Great American Novel is finally inclusive.
- By Margaret on 12-28-21
A great plot about family and community
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Black women are the Blueprint.
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This is told in 3 storylines: 1867 Freedomtime (post Civil War), Slaverytime 1854 (pre Civil War) and Surrender 1865. There is the story of Rue, daughter of May belle. They are slaves, owned by Master (Marse) Charles. May Belle is known for her hoodoo and doctoring. She keeps the slaves healthy, long living and the babies alive and then there is Varina, daughter and disappointment of Master Charles and her mother. There are so many other great characters in this book that I loved a lot- Jonah, Ma Doe, Airey, Ol' Joel..They are all wonderful.
The story goes back and forth between these 3 main characters and weaves the most heart breaking, tragic and beautiful story. I have an extremely hard time with slavery, racism and all the horrors that go along with that. I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle or finish this book. I picked it up for the Hoodoo, I stayed for the characters. There was parts that were hard to hear (or read)but Rue and May Belle got me through it.
These characters are so beautiful. They are so real and human and complex. The struggle of daily life and the challenges they face, the relationships they form, Afia Atakora spins it together so beautifully and creates such a rich story. I can't wait to see what she does next. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this author.
I loved this book!!
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Wonderful book all around
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I loved this story!
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Good but hard to follow at times
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Kept Listening and Hoping….
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Just OK
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If you love history
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LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!!!
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