Tayari Jones is an American author and academic. She is a graduate of Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. Jones currently serves as Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University in the College of Arts and Sciences. She previously held the position of Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-large at Cornell University. Jones is best known for her novel An American Marriage, which was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2018 and won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2019. The novel brought her significant recognition in the literary world. After spending a decade in New York City, Jones recently returned to her hometown of Atlanta, where she continues her work as a writer and educator.