Harlem Rhapsody
Victoria Christopher Murray
The First Ladies was Target’s 2023 Book of the Year.
A native of Queens, Victoria earned a B.A. in Communication Disorders from Hampton University and an MBA from New York University.
After spending over ten years in corporate America, in 1997, Victoria self-published her first novel, Temptation, and seven more before she landed a contract with Time Warner in 2000. Dubbed a Christian Fiction writer because no one else was writing about religious topics, Victoria trailblazed the literary scene penning more than 30 novels, co-writing with other authors, and ghostwriting for top talent across the country.
Over her career, Victoria has received numerous awards including the Phyllis Wheatley Trailblazer Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Osceola Award for Excellence in the Arts, Go On Girl Book Club Author of the Year, eleven African American Literary Awards and five NAACP Image Award nominations. In 2016, she won the Image Award for Outstanding Literature for her social commentary novel, Stand Your Ground.
Her latest novel HARLEM RHAPSODY introduces us to Jessie Redmon Fauset who found the literary voices that would inspire the world. In 1919, Jesse Redmon Fauset arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. She has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine but she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover.
The challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives…every African American writer in the country wants their work published there.
When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater, and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.