Sarah E. Farro

Born in Illinois around 1859 and raised in Chicago, Sarah E. Farro remains a somewhat mysterious figure. What can be confirmed is that she was an African American novelist whose life has been reconstructed only in fragments, including census records and later notices from Chicago community organizations.

Her only known book, True Love: A Story of English Domestic Life, was published in Chicago in 1891 by Donohue & Henneberry. Contemporary newspapers treated the novel as a notable achievement, and it later appeared in an exhibit of books by Illinois women writers at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The novel is a domestic romance set in England, reflecting the influence of writers Farro is said to have admired, including Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Farro was honored in Chicago in 1937 at an event celebrating "outstanding race pioneers," but much else about her later life, including the date of her death, is still unknown. That uncertainty has only added to the interest around her work, which offers a rare surviving glimpse of a Black woman novelist publishing in the 19th century.