KINGDOM OF NO TOMORROW

This powerful debutwinner of the 2023 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fictiontells the story of a young Haitian woman in California who becomes involved with the Black Panthers and discovers that being part of the revolution may not always mean equal justice for women.

It's the pivotal year of 1968, and Nettie Boileau, a young Haitian student in Oakland, gets caught up in the ongoing revolutionary fever. With her friend Clia Brown, she uses her public health skills to help operate the free health clinics created by the people she believes are "true revolutionaries," the Black Panthers. When she falls in love with Black Panther Party Defense Captain Melvin Mosley, their passionate love affair soon eclipses all elseher friendship with Clia and even her own sense of self. Pregnant, Nettie follows Melvin to Chicago to help with a newly-launched Illinois chapter of the Panthers, but once there, she finds Chicago segregated, police surveillance brutal, and her faith in love eroding as she suspects Melvin of infidelity. After a violent tussle with the police and the loss of their unborn child, both Nettie and Melvin are caught in the viciousness of J. Edgar Hoover's covert campaigns, and Nettie is soon on the run, desperate to find power in her roots and ultimately, to save herself. With richly imagined, relatable characters, Kingdom of No Tomorrow tells a provocative story of a revolution that fell short of its ideals, and of the women who became collateral damage, even as everyone fought for racial justice. Fabienne Josaphat was born and raised in Haiti, and graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. Of her first novel, Dancing in the Baron's Shadow published with Unnamed Press, Edwidge Danticat said, "Filled with life, suspense, and humor, this powerful first novel is an irresistible read about the nature of good and evil, terror and injustice, and ultimately triumph and love." In addition to fiction, Josaphat writes non-fiction and poetry, as well as screenplays. Her work has been featured in The African American Review, The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, The Master's Review, Grist Journal, Damselfly, Hinchas de Poesia, Off the Coast Journal and The Caribbean Writer. Her poems have been anthologized in Eight Miami Poets.