About the Book

A richly textured novel about two estranged African-American sisters who reunite in a effort to understand their father.

Endorsements

Lee... writes luminous, unself-conscious prose. Reading Water Marked, you are struck by the dire story, but even more by the beauty with which Lee pencils in the details of the characters' lives.

--The New York Times Book Review

In her new novel, Helen Elaine Lee blurs the boundaries between prose and poetry, life and art.

--Anita Desai

Water Marked is an engrossing novel in which the search for one truth leads to the disclosure of many.

--The San Diego Union Tribune

About the Author

Helen Elaine Lee was educated at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She is Director of the Program in Women's & Gender Studies and Professor of Fiction Writing in Comparative Media Studies/​Writing at MIT. Associate Chair of the Board of Directors of PEN New England, she serves on its Freedom to Write Committee and teaches in its Prison Creative Writing Program, which she helped to establish.

Lee, Helen Elaine. Water Marked: A Novel, New York: Scribner, 1999.