Ms. Naylor, right, with Anna Deavere Smith and Walter Mosley at the Spoken Word summer series in Central Park in 1994.
Gloria Naylor, whose debut novel, “The Women of Brewster Place,” won a National Book Award and was adapted into an acclaimed mini-series that starred and was produced by Oprah Winfrey, died on Wednesday near her home in Christiansted, V.I. She was 66.
The cause was heart failure, her niece, Cheryl Rance, said.
Ms. Naylor’s novels addressed social issues including poverty, racism, 𝓈ℯ𝓍ism and gay rights, usually through intricately drawn black female characters.
“The Women of Brewster Place” (1982) presented seven interlocking narratives, each centered on a different woman living in a decrepit housing project. The women struggle together against an indifferent and hostile world, surviving in the face of rape, homophobia and a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥’s death.
“Just as she went to reach for the girl’s hand, she stopped as if a muscle spasm had overtaken her body and, cowardly, shrank back,” Ms. Naylor wrote of a neighbor trying to comfort the dead 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥’s mother. “Reminiscences of old, dried-over pains were no consolation in the face of this. They had the effect of cold beads of water on a hot iron — they danced and fizzled up while the room stank from their steam.”
Critics praised “The Women of Brewster Place.” “Even if Gloria Naylor’s first novel were not the emotionally satisfying and technically accomplished book that it is, her decision to set it on Brewster Place, a one-street ‘ghetto,’ would have been courageous,” Susan Bolotin wrote in The New York Times in 1982. “What is marvelous, however, is that she doubled her own dare by leaving in the predictable landmarks, the archetypal characters, the usual clues, and made the whole thing work.”
“The Women of Brewster Place” won both the American Book Award and the National Book Award for first novel in 1983, the same year Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” won the National Book Award for best novel.
It gained further attention when Oprah Winfrey adapted it for ABC in 1989 as a two-part television movie, in which Ms. Winfrey starred with Robin Givens, Mary Alice and Cicely Tyson. It got high ratings but drew some criticism for its negative depictions of black men.
“Viewers may find themselves wondering how black society has ever managed to produce any men deserving respect,” John J. O’Connor wrote in The Times in 1989. But, he added, “Despite this nagging imbalance, ‘The Women of Brewster Place’ provides a good many moments of remarkably affecting television.”
Ms. Naylor’s other books include “Linden Hills” (1985), a depiction of upwardly mobile black suburban life with echoes of Dante’s “Inferno”; “Bailey’s Cafe” (1992), a look at the complicated dance of patrons and purveyors at a greasy spoon in 1940s Brooklyn; and “The Men of Brewster Place” (1998), in which she fleshed out the ancillary stories of the men who appeared in her earlier novel.
Her honors also include National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships.
Gloria Naylor was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in Manhattan on Jan. 25, 1950. She received a bachelor’s degree in English from Brooklyn College and a master’s degree from Yale University. Before she became a successful writer, Ms. Naylor held several jobs, including telephone operator.
She later taught at New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and other colleges.
She is survived by her sister, Bernice Harrison; her niece; and a nephew.
