Me Dying Trial

With a New Introduction by Edwidge Danticat

Me Dying Trial, Patricia Powell's masterful debut novel, establishes her as a major voice in Caribbean literature. Gwennie Augusta Glaspole, a schoolteacher, is trapped in an unhappy marriage and quickly saddled with six children. Gwennie resists Jamaican cultural expectations of playing dutiful wife and mother, struggling in a loveless, often abusive relationship, she eventually relocates to Connecticut. Dealing with issues of religion, sexuality, immigration, domestic violence, and gender inequality, Powell has proven to be "a Generation-X vanguard for the Caribbean literary world" (Boston Magazine), and much more.

Patricia Powell is the author of A Small Gathering of Bones, The Pagoda and a forthcoming novel, The Good Life. Her awards include the Bruce Rossley Literary Award, the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. Powell has taught creative writing at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Currently she is Martin Luther King Visiting Professor at MIT. Powell lives in Watertown, Massachusetts.