Gloria Naylor, whose debut novel, “The Women of Brewster Place,” won a National Book Award and was adapted into an acclaimed mini-series that starred and was produced by Oprah Winfrey, died on Wednesday near her home in Christiansted, V.I. She was 66.

The cause was heart failure, her niece, Cheryl Rance, said.

Ms. Naylor’s novels addressed social issues including poverty, racism, sexism and gay rights, usually through intricately drawn black female characters.

“The Women of Brewster Place” (1982) presented seven interlocking narratives, each centered on a different woman living in a decrepit housing project. The women struggle together against an indifferent and hostile world, surviving in the face of rape, homophobia and a child’s death.

“Just as she went to reach for the girl’s hand, she stopped as if a muscle spasm had overtaken her body and, cowardly, shrank back,” Ms. Naylor wrote of a neighbor trying to comfort the dead child’s mother. “Reminiscences of old, dried-over pains were no consolation in the face of this. They had the effect of cold beads of water on a hot iron — they danced and fizzled up while the room stank from their steam.”