The Women

Hilton Als

$24.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Penguin Books Ltd
16 October 2025

Biography: literary; Memoirs; Feminism & feminist theory; Gender studies: women; Gay & Lesbian studies

Imaginative, brilliant and daring- Hilton Als's now-classic meditation on gender, race and personal identity in America

What are the forces that shape us? In The Women, Hilton Als explores-with breath taking originality-the role of sexual and racial identity in marginalized lives. With a blend of fact and fiction, Als brings to vivid life a number of extraordinary characters, including- his mother, a singular woman whose West Indian heritage and determination inspired her son to write; Malcolm X's mother, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's burgeoning misogyny and fear; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who deeply empathized with white gay men; and Owen Dodson, teacher and poet, who played an important role in the author's development as a gay man, and thinker.

Combining memoir, cultural history, social theory and storytelling, The Women is a profoundly innovative work which has inspired a generation of writers. Here, Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to scrutiny, showing 'no mercy but every tenderness'. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books- a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.

By: Hilton Als
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 200g
ISBN: 9780141999746
ISBN 10: 0141999748
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 16 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Hilton Als is a Pulitzer prize-winning writer and staff writer at The New Yorker. He has received a number of awards, including a Guggenheim, a George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and the Windham Campbell prize from Yale University. He is the author of three acclaimed books - The Women, White Girls, and My Pinup; White Girls was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won the LAMBDA Literary Award. Als is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews for The Women

""Inventive and daring...a fascinating sensibility."" --Richard Bernstein, The New York Times ""The Women is a book to read several times, noting how its application grows broader and broader upon consideration. Like all truly original writing, it comes to no conclusions, imposes no creed and sets the reader free to ponder. Writing of people who limited themselves and died of it, Mr. Als has overcome limits...On the strength of his vision, he has managed to enter those 'expansive interior places' his mentor avoided. One hopes that he will just keep going."" --Andrea Lee, The New York Times Book Review