Eleven-year-old Pecola prayed that she would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting, her father would stop drinking, and her brother would stop running away.

Sula and Nel are born in the Bottom—a small town at the top of a hill. Sula is wild, and daring; she does what she wants, while Nel is well-mannered, a mamma’s girl with a questioning heart. Growing up they forge a bond stronger than anything, stronger even than the dark secret they have to bear. Strong enough, it seems, to last a lifetime—until, decades later, as the girls become women, Sula’s anarchy leads to a betrayal...

Arguably the most celebrated and revered writer of our time now gives us a new nonfiction collection--a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.00The Source of Self-Regard is brimming with all the elegance of mind and style, the literary prowess and moral compass that are Toni Morrison's inimitable hallmark. It is divided into three parts: the first is introduced by a powerful prayer...

A major addition to the canon of one of the world’s literary masters.

May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida—even L: all women obsessed with Bill Cosey. The wealthy owner of the famous Cosey’s Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, and friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is either the void in, or the center of, their stories,...

God Help the Child--the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment--weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There...

Children spend the day with their grandmother, who ignores their mother's carefully planned schedule in favor of activities that are much more fun.

In this 1983 short story about race and the relationships that shape us through life, Twyla and Roberta, friends since childhood who are seemingly at opposite ends of every problem as they grow older, cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.

TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM offers an artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the acclaimed novelist. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to '70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism...

Lula Ann ist solch ein tiefschwarzes Baby, dass ihre Mutter bei der Geburt fast zu Tode erschrickt und der Vater die junge Familie verlässt, weil er das Kind nicht als seines anerkennen kann. Die Mutter zieht Lula Ann allein groß und lehrt sie Gehorsam und Unterwürfigkeit, um nur nicht aufzufallen. Doch die heranwachsende Tochter sträubt sich gegen die verordnete Angepasstheit. Sie ändert ihren Namen in Bride, kleidet sich in provokant strahlendes...