#116: Village Weavers by Myriam J. A. Chancy

Our June book selection is Village Weavers by Myriam J. A. Chancy! Myriam will join us virtually for a Q&A.

PLEASE NOTE THE EARLIER START TIME. We will begin promptly at 1 pm with a guided tour of the Haitian-American Museum of Chicago, which moved into its new, permanent space earlier this year.

Support Black Girls Read Chicago by purchasing Village Weavers from Bookshop or from LibroFM (affiliate links).

About the book: From award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy comes an extraordinary and enduring story of two families—forever joined by country, and by long-held secrets—and two girls with a bond that refuses to be broken.

In 1940s Port-au-Prince, Gertie and Sisi become fast childhood friends, despite being on opposite ends of the social and economic ladder. As young girls, they build their unlikely friendship—until a deathbed revelation ripples through their families and tears them apart. After François Duvalier’s rule turns deadly in the 1950s, Sisi moves to Paris, while Gertie marries into a wealthy Dominican family. Across decades and continents, through personal success and failures, they are parted and reunited, slowly learning the truth of their singular relationship. Finally, six decades later, with both women in the United States, a sudden phone call brings them back together once more to reckon with and—perhaps—forgive the past.

Told with power and frankness, Village Weavers confronts the silences around class, race, and nationality, charts the moments when lives are irrevocably forced apart, and envisions two girls—connected their entire lives—who try to break inherited cycles of mistrust and find ways back into each other’s hearts.