Dominion

Addie E. Citchens was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and lives in New Orleans. A graduate of Jackson State University, she studied in the Florida State University Creative Writing Programme and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the Oxford American's "Best of the South", and other publications. Her blues history work features prominently in Mississippi Folklife, and she has been heard on The Mississippi Arts Hour on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. She was the inaugural recipient of the Farrar, Strauss and Giroux Writer's Fellowship, and her short story "That Girl" won the O. Henry Prize. Dominion is her first novel.

"In its exploration of female competition and resourcefulness, Dominion may remind readers of Zora Neale Hurston."* The New York Times *"Gripping. Dominion has the page-turning quality of a crime novel. The narrative layering... is a masterstroke, because Citchens writes community so well: every character, however briefly we see them, is intriguing in their own right, like portraits in a gallery you could spend an entire day browsing."* The Telegraph *"Mississippi is a mystifying language. In Dominion, Addie E. Citchens speaks it with a dazzling tongue. The book is at once ancestral and newborn, drunk with sugary grits beauty and sobering with a Black woman's truth. Citchens shows us that, in a world roamed by two-legged beasts whose robes are stitched with the blood and ruin of willful women, getting happy and getting free are vast contradictions."* Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor *"A wise, sophisticated, and impressively crafted novel of secrets, longing, and strength."* Angela Flournoy, author of The Wilderness *"This is the rarest and finest kind of storytelling, where both the tradition and innovation get plucked by the most audacious artistry I've experienced in a long, long time. You read this and see there's literally nothing narratively Addie E. Citchens can't do with her skill, her will. We have never in our reading lives experienced such an imagination, a gumption, a breathing Mississippi, and a craftsperson this locked in at this stage of her career. My god, we are lucky."* Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy *"It's rare that a debut author produces a work of such tenderness and ferocity, but that's what Addie E. Citchens has done in her unforgettable Dominion. Rich with metaphor and thrumming power, it tells a vivid and unforgettable story of two Mississippi Black women. If Citchens didn't exist, the South would invent her. But she does exist and our common literary soil is enriched because of it."* Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of The American Daughters *"In Dominion, Addie E. Citchens teaches us how ceremony works. She shows us how much it matters whose voices take center stage, which questions we ask, and whose stories we avoid. And the costs of not listening to our own voices and the prophetic wisdom of Black women and girls. Somehow Citchens worked a horror and healing into the same tightly woven work of brilliance. I laughed and cried with and even prayed over these characters. I could not stop turning the pages. And the ceremony worked. Nothing is the same now. Addie E. Citchens is a world-changing writer."* Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde *"I loved this brilliant novel. Dominion is a must-read. Addie E. Citchens tackles misogyny with urgency, humor, authenticity, and unflinching honesty. Citchens has crafted an unforgettable work of art that exalts the beauty and strength of Black womanhood against the backdrop of the patriarchy. Thought-provoking and entertaining, this incandescent novel will stay with readers."* Annell Lopez, author of I'll Give You a Reason *