Jubilee

by Margaret Walker · 1966

Margaret Walker’s *Jubilee* follows Vyry, the mixed‑race daughter of a white plantation owner and his enslaved mistress, as she grows up amid the glittering mansions and brutal realities of the antebellum South. Through Vyry’s eyes we witness the opulence of plantation life, the horrors of slavery, the devastation of the Civil War, and the fragile hopes of Reconstruction. Drawing on her grandmother’s oral history and three decades of research, Walker weaves a vivid, lyrical portrait of a woman who defies every constraint, embodying the fierce spirit of a people yearning for freedom. *Jubilee* is both a family saga and a sweeping chronicle of American history, alive with hymns, hunger, and the relentless quest for dignity.