Winner of the Lillian Smith Award for Southern literature that enhances racial awareness, the national bestseller Clover, first published by Algonquin in 1990, became a paperback bestseller for Fawcett and went on to be a made-for-TV movie, starring Elizabeth McGovern and Ernie Hudson, in 1997. In twenty-three years, it has never been out of print and has been “recommended reading” for classrooms across the country. Now on our thirtieth anniversary we have the pleasure of republishing this Algonquin classic in trade paperback, with an original essay by the author. Hailed for it’s refreshing voice, Clover has earned critics’ praise:

“Warmly engrossing . . . [Sanders] writes with wit and authority in this unusual gem of a love story.” —Chicago Tribune

“Striking . . . Clover, a 10-year-old black girl from a small town in South Carolina, chronicles her bewildering but gradually deepening relationship with her white stepmother following her father’s tragic death only hours after the marriage . . . The author . . . has staked out an impressive new territory here, replete with peach farmers, textile workers, drunks and crazy people, with the newly middle class as well as the terminally poor . . . Clover is very much the genuine item.” —The New York Times Book Review

“With black vernacular as convincing as Alice Walker’s, imaginative metaphors that rival Maya Angelou’s and humor as delicious as Zora Neale Hurston’s, Sanders has created a refreshing new voice.” —Publishers Weekly

“Provocative and thoroughly engaging . . . This is an honest and refreshing novel that makes an important statement about the barriers between blacks and whites . . . Clover is bursting with sweetness, flavor and color.” —San Francisco Chronicle