The inspiration for the acclaimed OWN TV series produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay.

A mother-daughter story of reinvention--about an African American woman who unexpectedly inherits a sugarcane farm in Louisiana. Why exactly Charley Bordelon's late father left her eight hundred sprawling acres of sugarcane land in rural Louisiana is as mysterious as it was generous. Recognizing this as a chance to start over, Charley and her eleven-year-old daughter, Micah, say good-bye to Los Angeles. They arrive just in time for growing season but no amount of planning can prepare Charley for a Louisiana that's mired in the past: as her judgmental but big-hearted grandmother tells her, cane farming is always going to be a white man's business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley must balance the overwhelming challenges of her farm with the demands of a homesick daughter, a bitter and troubled brother, and the startling desires of her own heart.

BIO

Natalie Baszile has a master's degree in Afro-American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers where she was a Holden Minority Scholar. Queen Sugar has been made into a dramatic television series, produced for OWN by Warner Horizon Television. Baszile lives in San Francisco with her family.

REVIEWS

"Queen Sugar is a page-turning, heart-breaking novel of the new south, where the past is never truly past, but the future is a hot, bright promise. This is a story of family and the healing power of our connections--to each other, and to the rich land beneath our feet." --Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

"After turning the last page of Queen Sugar, I already miss the gutsy, contemporary African American woman who ditches California and migrates to Louisiana to run her inherited cane farm. Natalie Baszile is a fresh, new voice that resists all Southern stereotypes, and delivers an authentic knock-out read."
--Lalita Tademy, New York Times bestselling author of Cane River and Red River

"Baszile infuses her novel with flickers of poetic detail and spot-on observations... Queen Sugar gets props for its charming characters and enthralling, fully realized setting." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Penguin Books  /  January 27, 2015

0.81" H x 8.0" L x 5.38" W (0.6 lbs) 384 pages