Product Description

The blues singer Ursa is consumed by her hatred of Corregidora, the 19th-century slavemaster who fathered both her grandmother and mother. Made sterile in a violent fight with her husband Mutt, Ursa Corregidora is determined to seek revenge for the crimes of violent men. Her search for independence is stark and shocking. Gayl Jones was shortlisted for the 1998 National Book Award for her novel, The Healing. Corregidora, her first book, is a classic of American fiction and heralds her place among the generation of Black American women writers which includes Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #316571 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. Her novel The Healing was shortlisted for the 1998 National Book Award. She is also the author of Eva's Man, The White Rat: Short Stories, and numerous other works which include plays and poetry.

Customer Reviews

Woman Blues...

This novel is about speaking the pain inflicted onto the body. The most powerful intention of the novel lies in its engagement with a slave past and the way in which the past is present in contemporary culture through the vein of inheritance.

Ursa is charged with bearing generations in order to produce evidence of the traumatic past that her maternal family has been part of, but when she is left barren, her desire and duty is left compromised.

Ursa sings the blues as a way of expressing her existence - to become viable in a world that seeks to dominate and overcome her.

Jones choses to confront sexual exploitation through language, and her writing can be to some crude and overwhelming, but her intention is to engage with the relation between men and women and the underlying powers of control here.

Gayl Jones speaks of a woman's methods of empowerment - pain, loss and the erotic are inscribed onto the body and the novel is a sensual evocation of identity and voice.