Chase-Riboud has received numerous honors for her literary work, including the Carl Sandburg Prize for poetry and the Women's Caucus for Art's lifetime achievement award.
In 1965, she became the first American woman to visit the People's Republic of China after the revolution.
In 1996, she was knighted by the French Government and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Chase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings (1979).
The novel has been described as the "first full blown imagining" of Hemings and her life as a slave, including her long-rumored concubine relationship with President Thomas Jefferson.
In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, as mainline historians of the time denied the relationship and the mixed-race children she bore to Jefferson, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman.
It sold more than one million copies in hardcover and it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.
It was reissued in 1994.
It was published in paperback in 2009, together with her novel, President's Daughter (1994), about Harriet Hemings, daughter of Hemings and Jefferson, who passed into white society.

She began her writing career as a poet, publishing her first work Memphis & Peking (1974), edited by Toni Morrison, and more recent collections.
Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released (2014) is her latest.

Chase-Riboud has continued her literary exploration into slavery and exploitation of African people with her subsequent novels.
Valide: A Novel of the Harem (1986) examined slavery in the Ottoman empire.
 Her Echo of Lions (1989) was one of the first serious novels about the historic Amistad slave-ship revolt of 1839.
Hottentot Venus: A Novel (2003) explores the life of Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman who was exhibited naked in freak shows in 19th-century Europe.

In 1994, Chase-Riboud published The President's Daughter, a work that continued the Sally Hemings story, by imagining the life of her and Jefferson's mixed-race daughter Harriet Hemings.
She and all the children were seven-eighths European or white by ancestry.
At the age of 21, Harriet left Monticello, given traveling money by Jefferson via his overseer, and went North.
She settled in Washington, DC where her brother Beverley had already settled.
Like him, she passed into white society.
She married a white man, according to her letters to her brother Madison Hemings.
Madison was the only one of the four surviving Hemings children who lived the remainder of his life identifying as African-American.
After moving from Ohio to Wisconsin in 1852, Eston Hemings and his family took the surname "Jefferson" and passed into white society.
Chase-Riboud has received numerous honors for her literary work, including the Carl Sandburg Prize for poetry and the Women's Caucus for Art's lifetime achievement award. In 1965, she became the first American woman to visit the People's Republic of China after the revolution. In 1996, she was knighted by the French Government and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Chase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings (1979). The novel has been described as the "first full blown imagining" of Hemings and her life as a slave, including her long-rumored concubine relationship with President Thomas Jefferson. In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, as mainline historians of the time denied the relationship and the mixed-race children she bore to Jefferson, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman. It sold more than one million copies in hardcover and it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. It was reissued in 1994. It was published in paperback in 2009, together with her novel, President's Daughter (1994), about Harriet Hemings, daughter of Hemings and Jefferson, who passed into white society.
She began her writing career as a poet, publishing her first work Memphis & Peking (1974), edited by Toni Morrison, and more recent collections. Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released (2014) is her latest.
Chase-Riboud has continued her literary exploration into slavery and exploitation of African people with her subsequent novels. Valide: A Novel of the Harem (1986) examined slavery in the Ottoman empire.  Her Echo of Lions (1989) was one of the first serious novels about the historic Amistad slave-ship revolt of 1839. Hottentot Venus: A Novel (2003) explores the life of Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman who was exhibited naked in freak shows in 19th-century Europe.
In 1994, Chase-Riboud published The President's Daughter, a work that continued the Sally Hemings story, by imagining the life of her and Jefferson's mixed-race daughter Harriet Hemings. She and all the children were seven-eighths European or white by ancestry. At the age of 21, Harriet left Monticello, given traveling money by Jefferson via his overseer, and went North. She settled in Washington, DC where her brother Beverley had already settled. Like him, she passed into white society. She married a white man, according to her letters to her brother Madison Hemings. Madison was the only one of the four surviving Hemings children who lived the remainder of his life identifying as African-American. After moving from Ohio to Wisconsin in 1852, Eston Hemings and his family took the surname "Jefferson" and passed into white society.
Barbara Chase-Riboud