Joe Trace, a middle-aged itinerant cosmetics salesman, fatally shoots his young lover. Blinded by jealousy, his wife, Violet, storms into the church during the funeral and attacks the deceased. A passionate story of love and obsession, set in Harlem during the mid-20th century with flashbacks to the American South in the 19th century, to speak about the emotions, expectations, fears, and harsh reality of African-American life.

A novel written like a musical composition of jazz through the excellent combination of various narrative voices, "Jazz" is the African-American epic that earned the author the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This edition includes an afterword by the translator Katerina Schina titled "Place as Narrative".