Ayana Mathis on The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

HR 2

GUEST: AYANA MATHIS

[From the Raido Times archives] AYANA MATHIS is living every aspiring writer’s fantasy. Your first book gets published and then the good reviews start rolling in. You are even chosen for the Oprah book club guaranteeing good sales.  Ayana Mathis’ novel that’s getting all this attention is The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.  The book begins in the 1920s when a teenager and young mother named Hattie moves to Philadelphia.  She’s part of the Great Migration when millions of African Americans moved from the south to the north looking for work and a better life.  Hattie’s life has been marked by a great loss which plays out through her children’s lives. Ayana Mathis grew up in Philadelphia and joined Marty last winter to talk how and why she wrote her first book.