Paule Marshall first gained attention in 1959 with the publication of her first novel, Brown Girl, Brownstones, a coming-of-age account in the tradition of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970). It was followed by a short-story collection, Soul, Clap Hands and Sing (1961). Her second novel, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, published in 1969, takes place in the Caribbean and, as critic Barbara Christian has noted, “Her emphasis moves from the way the world affects an individual psyche to how many psyches create a world.” Praisesong for the Widow is Marshall’s third novel. It has drawn steady critical attention since its publication and has been admired especially for its portrayal of that rare character in African American fiction, the middle-aged and middle-class woman. Critics also point to Marshall’s effective use of myth, the heroic quest, and ritual in the novel. Though Marshall’s works have never had the wide audience that Alice Walker’s or Toni Morrison’s fiction has had, they are important, powerful, and influential. Marshall’s Daughters (1991) has also gained wide praise.