Ayana Mathis writes literary fiction about Black American families across generations, with migration, motherhood and the long consequences of individual choices at the centre of her novels. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie begins with Hattie Shepherd, who leaves the American South for Philadelphia during the Great Migration, and then moves through the lives of her children in linked sections that reveal different versions of the same family history. The Unsettled follows Ava Carson and her young son Toussaint after they enter a shelter in Philadelphia, while also tracing Ava’s mother and a separate community in Alabama. Mathis changes viewpoint frequently and allows gaps between chapters to carry as much weight as direct explanation, so the reading experience is episodic and character-led rather than organised around a single continuous plot. Her work fits African American literary fiction, family sagas and Great Migration fiction. Toni Morrison and Yaa Gyasi offer useful comparison points for Mathis’s interest in inheritance, displacement and family history distributed across several voices. Read more Less
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