Black Wine — Candas Jane Dorsey

“Those who enjoy the work of such popular feminist speculative fiction writers as Joanna Russ and Ursula K. Le Guin will find much to admire here.” -- Publishers Weekly
 
Winner of the IAFA Crawford, and the James Tiptree, Jr., and the Aurora awards, Black Wine beckons readers into a stark and richly realized world similar to yet very different from our own, to explore the many ways a woman can be cut off from her own history.  How does a woman survive, maintain her sense of self in such a place? An amnesiac slave girl struggles to learn about her past -- and secure a future outside the oppressive society that binds her. A female adventurer confronts danger as she searches for her lost mother. A wife struggles within a marriage to a man she does not want. A world of female characters whose emotional journeys are intimately intertwined, where identity and history, language and perception, sexuality and oppression, unite them in their search for meaning, human connection, and ultimately, freedom.
 
“The careful braiding of self, places, and times insidiously pulls you in. -- Elisabeth Vonarburg, author of The Silent City and The Maerlande Chronicles
 
“Like its title, Black Wine is rare and darkly glowing with iridescence. A taut, spare, wonderful creation.” -- Edmonton Journal 
 
“A tantalizing, distinctive, sexy, and beautifully rendered first novel.” -- Kirkus Reviews