Brown Girl, Brownstones

The beloved novel about a New York City girlhood that heralded a renaissance in Black women's literature, with a new foreword by Nicole Dennis-Benn, the bestselling author of Patsy and Here Comes the Sun

One of The New York Times Magazine's 25 Most Significant New York City Novels from the Last 100 Years

A Penguin Classic

Selina Boyce comes of age in 1940s New York as the daughter of two immigrants from Barbados: a free-spirited father she adores and who dreams of returning to his Caribbean island home, and a disciplined, hardworking mother she admires and who is determined to purchase their Brooklyn brownstone. When her father comes into an unexpected inheritance, Selina is torn between his nostalgia for the past and her mother's ambition for the future, all while negotiating racism, sexuality, Depression-era poverty, and the competing values of African Americans and her West Indian immigrant community.

First published in 1959, Brown Girl, Brownstones opened a window into the rich inner life of Black women and today ranks with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as one of the great New York City novels. With her autobiographical debut, Paule Marshall paved the way for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Maya Angelou--and took her place in the American literary canon.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author: Paule Marshall
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 06/02/2026
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 7.75h x 5.14w x 0.55d
ISBN: 9780143139218

About the Author
Paule Marshall (1929-2019) was a MacArthur "genius," a Guggenheim fellow, and the recipient of numerous other honors, including the American Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. A member of "the Sisterhood" of Black women writers that included Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Alice Walker, she published five novels--Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959); The Chosen Place, the Timeless People (1969); Praisesong for the Widow (1983); Daughters (1991); and The Fisher King (2001)--as well as a collection of novellas, Soul Clap Hands and Sing (1961); a short-story collection, Reena and Other Stories (1983); and a memoir, Triangular Road (2009). Born and raised in Brooklyn to parents from Barbados, she died in Richmond, Virginia.

Nicole Dennis-Benn (foreword) is the author of the Read with Jenna Book Club pick Patsy, which was a national bestseller and a Lambda Literary Award winner, and Here Comes the Sun, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Lambda Literary Award winner. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, she teaches at Princeton and lives with her wife in Brooklyn, New York.