An epic tale of love and liberation set in seventeenth-century colonial Brazil and the first book in over 20 years from a major voice in American literature.

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE

'Reinvents 17th-century Black Brazil in all its multiplicity, beauty, humanity and chaos. It is a once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world' Yara Rodrigues Fowler, Guardian

'Palmares is an odyssey, one woman's search first for a place, and then for a person . . . A story woven with extraordinary complexity, depth and skill' Robert Jones, Jr, New York Times

From plantation to plantation, Almeyda, a young slave girl, hears whispers of Palmares, a hidden refuge where fugitive slaves live free. But can this promised land exist? And what price is paid for 'freedom'?

'Astonishingly rich in character and incident, filled with magic and mystery' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

'Tremendous. A masterfully absorbing, mythic work from a vital voice' Irenosen Okojie

'Page after breathtaking page, her prose is intricate, mesmerizing and endlessly inventive and subversive. Palmares is absolutely stunning!' Deesha Philyaw

'An intricate, imaginative story of love and brutality' Kadish Morris, Observer

'A sprawling, ambitious tale of racial struggle, Portuguese colonial rule, magical realism & mythology . . . a sublime feat of imagination' Martin Chilton, Independent

A 2022 PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE

'A once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world' Yara Rodriguez Fowler, Guardian
'Astonishingly rich in character and incident, filled with magic and mystery' Sunday Times
'Intricate, mesmerizing and endlessly inventive and subversive' Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
'A story woven with extraordinary complexity, depth and skill', Robert Jones, Jr, author of The Prophets

AN EPIC TALE OF LOVE AND LIBERATION SET IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY COLONIAL BRAZIL

From plantation to plantation, Almeyda, a young slave girl, hears whispers, rumours of Palmares, a hidden settlement where fugitive slaves live free. But can this promised land exist? And what price is paid for 'freedom'?

In Palmares, Gayl Jones brings to life a world full of unforgettable characters, reimagining extraordinary historical events and combining them with mythology and magic. The result is a sweeping saga spanning a quarter of a century. Of Gayl Jones, the New Yorker noted, '[Her] great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them.' Like nothing else before it, Palmares embodies this gift.