Super Short Summary

Published in 1999, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust is a stand-alone historical fiction novel following the Peazant family, a Gullah-Geechee family on Dawtuh Island off the South Carolina coast. The protagonist, Amelia Varnes, returns to the island to trace her family's history, exploring themes of cultural preservation, identity, and the importance of family through a blend of magical realism, myth, and history. The novel contains descriptions of sexual abuse, sexual assault, suicide, enslavement, racism, racist violence, and racial slurs that are only replicated in direct quotations.