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Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Dolen Perkins-Valdez

“The story is in those little hidden spots . . . I think [the absence of archival material] can be very frustrating if you're a historian or if you're an academic, but for a novelist, to me, those silences in the archives and in the record are freeing and liberating.”

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“In exploring unexplored events involving Black American women, Perkins-Valdez gives us a fuller, richer view of our nation's history while also reminding readers that Black girls' bodies and futures have never been protected in the American experiment.” —Tina McElroy Ansa, The Washington Post

Dolen Perkins-Valdez writes about the silences in the archives, particularly those in African American history. Her most recent novel, Happy Land, tells the story of the real-life American kingdom in the hills of western North Carolina, inspired by great African kingdoms.

Dolen is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels: Wench (2010), Balm (2015), Take My Hand (2022), and Happy Land (2025). Happy Land was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by People, Harper’s Bazaar, PopSugar, Reader’s Digest, SheReads, Women’s World, BookBrowse, and elsewhere. Regarding her work on Happy Land, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers says that Dolen is “at her brilliant best, opening History’s treasure-filled chest—and then, bringing that history to life.”

The success of her most recent novel follows the legacy of her successful career. Her novel, Take My Hand, was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, Essence, NBC News, and elsewhere. It was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and named a Top 20 Book of the Year by the Editors at Amazon, as well as awarded the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Fiction, the 2023 BCALA Award for Fiction, and the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association.

In 2011, her debut, Wench, was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and in 2017, HarperCollins released Wench as one of eight “Olive Titles,” limited edition modern classics that included books by Edward P. Jones, Louise Erdrich, and Zora Neale Hurston. O, The Oprah Magazine chose Wench as a Top Ten Pick of the Month, and NPR named it a top 5 book club pick of 2010. Her short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, StorySouth, and elsewhere.

Dolen is a three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship and is currently Associate Professor in the Literature Department at American University. A graduate of Harvard and a former University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, Dolen lives in Washington, DC with her family.

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Dolen Perkins-Valdez

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Dolen Perkins-Valdez on her new novel, 'Take My Hand' - New Day NW

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