Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison is among our most distinguished contemporary novelists. Morrison describes herself as a black woman novelist, and all her novels deal with African American characters and communities. Exploring the entire cycle of human life in a spiritual context, her novels are also universal in their depiction of families, especially mothers and their children. From her first novel, The Bluest Eye, to her most recent, Paradise, Toni Morrison has explored the African American experience, and by extension, the human experience. Her characters linger in our minds long after we have finished reading the novel. This is the only book-length study to discuss all of Morrison's novels published to date. This study analyzes in turn each of Morrison's novels. It also provides the reader with a complete bibliography of her writings, as well as selected reviews and criticism. Following a biographical chapter on Toni Morrison's life, Kubitschek discusses Morrison's writing in the tradition not only of African American literature but of the great modernist and postmodernist American writers. Each of the following chapters examines an individual novel: The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1998). The discussion of each novel features sections on plot and character development, narrative structure, thematic issues, and an alternative critical approach from which to read the novel. Written specifically for high school and college students and general readers, this study illuminates and enriches the reading of Morrison's novels.
This book is a revealing look at the life and work of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison: A Biography looks at the remarkable life of an essential American novelist, whose critically acclaimed, bestselling books offer lively, powerful depictions of black America. Toni Morrison follows the life of the woman born Chloe Ardelia Wofford from her culturally rich childhood in Lorrain, OH, through her spectacular rise as a novelist, educator, and public intellectual. The book also serves as a basic introduction to the literary influences that shaped Morrison's writing, from the early novels to the breakout success of Song of Solomon; from the overwhelming achievement of Beloved to her most recent book, A Mercy. The book also examines Morrison's other writing—criticism, essays, edited volumes, children's books—as well as her academic career, her work as an editor at Random House, and her political activism, most notably in the 2008 presidential campaign.
This New Casebook provides an overview of the criticism of work by Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature, and an introduction to the key works and issues in African-American literary scholarship. It is supported by the first annotated bibliography of the different critical approaches which have been taken to Morrison's fiction. The essays provide insights into the structure, themes, language and contexts of her novels which will prove invaluable for both new readers and those already familiar with her work.
This New Casebook provides an overview of the criticism of work by Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature, and an introduction to the key works and issues in African-American literary scholarship. It is supported by the first annotated bibliography of the different critical approaches which have been taken to Morrison's fiction. The essays provide insights into the structure, themes, language and contexts of her novels which will prove invaluable for both new readers and those already familiar with her work.
This work expands the scope of Morrison’s project to examine the ways and means of memory in the preservation of belief systems passed down from the earliest civilizations (both the Classical Greek and the Ancient Egyptian) as a challenge to the sterility of modernity. Moreover, this research explores the author’s specific use of Foucauldian theory as a vehicle for her narrative, which reclaims the very origins of civilization’s primal concerns with life, procreation and regeneration, springing from the very Heart of Africa. Despite the weight of "white" authority and the disparaging of "blackness," Beloved’s multiple "ghosts" conjure up a legacy so potent that no authoritarian discourse has been able to entirely erase it, a legacy that still speaks to us from a heritage we no longer acknowledge yet that nevertheless remains, and sustains us.
Toni Morrison's visionary explorations of freedom and identity, self and community, against the backdrop of African American history have established her as one of the foremost novelists of her time; an artist whose seriousness of purpose and imaginative power have earned her both widespread critical acclaim and great popular success.This guide to Morrison’s work offers:an accessible introduction to Morrison’s life and historical contextsa guide to her key works and the themes and concerns that run through them an overview of critical texts and perspectives on each of Morrison’s works cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism a chronology of Morrison’s life and works.Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of Toni Morrison and seeking a guide to her work and a way into the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds it.
Toni Morrison's visionary explorations of freedom and identity, self and community, against the backdrop of African American history have established her as one of the foremost novelists of her time; an artist whose seriousness of purpose and imaginative power have earned her both widespread critical acclaim and great popular success.This guide to Morrison’s work offers:an accessible introduction to Morrison’s life and historical contextsa guide to her key works and the themes and concerns that run through them an overview of critical texts and perspectives on each of Morrison’s works cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism a chronology of Morrison’s life and works.Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of Toni Morrison and seeking a guide to her work and a way into the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds it.
Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated living authors. Her work, for which she received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, vibrantly portrays American life from the Antebellum period to the present. Her best-selling novels and short stories have been adapted for theater and film, influenced countless artists, and have been widely read on college campuses for decades. Hendrick provides a short, contextualizing biography about Morrison's life and then moves through Morrison's work, introducing students to slavery, segregation, law, and civil rights. In five brief chapters, bolstered by interviews, excerpts, and historical documents, Toni Morrison provides a perfect analytical bridge between literature and history. Routledge Historical Americans is a series of short, vibrant biographies that illuminate the lives of Americans who have had an impact on the world. Each book includes a short overview of the person’s life and puts that person into historical context through essential primary documents, written both by the subjects and about them. A series website supports the books, containing extra images and documents, links to further research, and where possible, multi-media sources on the subjects. Perfect for including in any course on American History, the books in the Routledge Historical Americans series show the impact everyday people can have on the course of history.
Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated living authors. Her work, for which she received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, vibrantly portrays American life from the Antebellum period to the present. Her best-selling novels and short stories have been adapted for theater and film, influenced countless artists, and have been widely read on college campuses for decades. Hendrick provides a short, contextualizing biography about Morrison's life and then moves through Morrison's work, introducing students to slavery, segregation, law, and civil rights. In five brief chapters, bolstered by interviews, excerpts, and historical documents, Toni Morrison provides a perfect analytical bridge between literature and history. Routledge Historical Americans is a series of short, vibrant biographies that illuminate the lives of Americans who have had an impact on the world. Each book includes a short overview of the person’s life and puts that person into historical context through essential primary documents, written both by the subjects and about them. A series website supports the books, containing extra images and documents, links to further research, and where possible, multi-media sources on the subjects. Perfect for including in any course on American History, the books in the Routledge Historical Americans series show the impact everyday people can have on the course of history.
This work expands the scope of Morrison’s project to examine the ways and means of memory in the preservation of belief systems passed down from the earliest civilizations (both the Classical Greek and the Ancient Egyptian) as a challenge to the sterility of modernity. Moreover, this research explores the author’s specific use of Foucauldian theory as a vehicle for her narrative, which reclaims the very origins of civilization’s primal concerns with life, procreation and regeneration, springing from the very Heart of Africa. Despite the weight of "white" authority and the disparaging of "blackness," Beloved’s multiple "ghosts" conjure up a legacy so potent that no authoritarian discourse has been able to entirely erase it, a legacy that still speaks to us from a heritage we no longer acknowledge yet that nevertheless remains, and sustains us.
Toni Morrison's fiction has been read as a contribution to and critique of Western civilization and Christianity. La Vinia Jennings reveals the fundamental role African traditional religious symbols play in her work. Based on extensive research into West African religions and philosophy, Jennings uncovers and interprets the African themes, images and cultural resonances in Morrison's fiction. She shows how symbols brought to the Americas by West African slaves are used by Morrison in her landscapes, interior spaces, and the bodies of her characters. Jennings's analysis of these symbols shows how a West African collective worldview informs both Morrison's work, and contemporary African-American life and culture. This important contribution to Morrison studies will be of great interest to scholars of African-American literature.
Toni Morrison's fiction has been read as a contribution to and critique of Western civilization and Christianity. La Vinia Jennings reveals the fundamental role African traditional religious symbols play in her work. Based on extensive research into West African religions and philosophy, Jennings uncovers and interprets the African themes, images and cultural resonances in Morrison's fiction. She shows how symbols brought to the Americas by West African slaves are used by Morrison in her landscapes, interior spaces, and the bodies of her characters. Jennings's analysis of these symbols shows how a West African collective worldview informs both Morrison's work, and contemporary African-American life and culture. This important contribution to Morrison studies will be of great interest to scholars of African-American literature.
Toni Stone is an encyclopedia of baseball stats. She's got a great arm. And she doesn't understand why she can't play with the boys. About the first woman to go pro in the Negro League and featuring a bullpen of players crossing age race and gender to portray all supporting roles Toni Stoneis a vibrant new play about staying in the game playing hard playing smart and playing your own way.NYT Critic's Pick! "Toni Stoneis at its considerable best whenever like its main character it's at its most unconventional." -The New York Times"A compelling must-see play." -TheaterMania"A provocative story of grit and determination." -Newsday
Toni's Room is a poetic journey into the most sacred and sensitive parts of me as a black woman, a female activist, writer, lover and mother. Some poems are 20 years old, some were written this year but all of them provide a look into this black woman's journey from innocence to restoration through ecstasy, heartache, grief, loss, activism and self-love. I felt that there is a need especially during these emotionally charged experiences that artists are the vehicle to healing. I seek to honor myself, my ancestors and open the possibility of healing through art by sharing my poetry in Toni's Room. I hope you find comfort in this space, stay as long as you'd like and invite your friends
A quirk of fate puts a Blatina in the Oval Office. What now?Toni Madison never dreamed about becoming President. It simply wasn't even an option for someone like her, a Black Latina after all. Life had a different plan as a heart attack places her behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Now, three years into her bland accidental Presidency, Toni notices she could do better. In fact, she wants to do better.She wants to be a great President.Things start to heat up as she launches her election campaign.She quickly realizes that there are many people who are honestly threatened by a woman of color serving in the highest office of the land.When threatened, people tend to respond with underhanded, manipulative viciousness. As betrayals follow threats that follow intense pushback, Toni reaches back to her gritty youth to find succor along with the support of her quirky, loyal staff.The thrilling roller-coaster ride of a Presidential election campaign speeds up as Toni strives to let her message be louder than her skin color and gender ... if only she lives to make it to election day.Readers say..."...we watch fascinated as Toni comes into her own. Step by painful step.""A girl can grow into a woman who can do anything. Toni calls upon all the strength and wisdom learned throughout her past.""In the crazy political climate of today, this was a delightful and yet insightful read.""Many readers like myself will be able to relate to the search for one's purpose. The other characters add charm, humor and the endearment of dedication and friendship."
York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.
A box set of Toni Morrison's principal works, featuring The Bluest Eye (her first novel), Beloved (Pulitzer Prize winner), and Song of Solomon (National Book Critics Award winner). Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, Beloved transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. This spellbinding novel tells the story of Sethe, a former slave who escapes to Ohio, but eighteen years later is still not free. In The New York Times bestselling novel, The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty and yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes, that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. With Song of Solomon, Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as she follows Milkman Dead from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, introducing an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world. This beautifully designed slipcase will make the perfect holiday and perennial gift.
An illuminating study of one of the best-selling, most widely studied black authors today. Explains Morrison's relation to the American civil rights and Black Consciousness movements. Places Morrison in a political and historical context .
Traces Morrison's theory of African American mothering as it is articulated in her novels, essays, speeches, and interviews.Traces Morrison's theory of African American mothering as it is articulated in her novels, essays, speeches, and interviews.Mothering is a central issue for feminist theory, and motherhood is also a persistent presence in the work of Toni Morrison. Examining Morrison's novels, essays, speeches, and interviews, Andrea O'Reilly illustrates how Morrison builds upon black women's experiences of and perspectives on motherhood to develop a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different from motherhood as practiced and prescribed in the dominant culture. Motherhood, in Morrison's view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and integral to black women's fight against racism (and sexism) and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of mothering are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues O'Reilly, is Morrison's maternal theory-a politics of the heart."As an advocate of 'a politics of the heart,' O'Reilly has an acute insight into discerning any threat to the preservation and continuation of traditional African American womanhood and values … Above all, Toni Morrison and Motherhood, based on Andrea O'Reilly's methodical research on Morrison's works as well as feminist critical resources, proffers a useful basis for understanding Toni Morrison's works. It certainly contributes to exploring in detail Morrison's rich and complex works notable from the perspectives of nurturing and sustaining African American maternal tradition." - African American Review"O'Reilly boldly reconfigures hegemonic western notions of motherhood while maintaining dialogues across cultural differences." - Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering"Andrea O'Reilly examines Morrison's complex presentations of, and theories about, motherhood with admirable rigor and a refusal to simplify, and the result is one of the most penetrating and insightful studies of Morrison yet to appear, a book that will prove invaluable to any scholar, teacher, or reader of Morrison." - South Atlantic Review "…it serves as a sort of annotated bibliography of nearly all the major theoretical work on motherhood and on Morrison as an author … anyone conducting serious study of either Toni Morrison or motherhood, not to mention the combination, should read [this book]... O'Reilly's exhaustive research, her facility with theories of Anglo-American and Black feminism, and her penetrating analyses of Morrison's works result in a highly useful scholarly read." - Literary Mama"By tracing both the metaphor and literal practice of mothering in Morrison's literary world, O'Reilly conveys Morrison's vision of motherhood as an act of resistance." - American Literature "Motherhood is critically important as a recurring theme in Toni Morrison's oeuvre and within black feminist and feminist scholarship. An in-depth analysis of this central concern is necessary in order to explore the complex disjunction between Morrison's interviews, which praise black mothering, and the fiction, which presents mothers in various destructive and self-destructive modes. Kudos to Andrea O'Reilly for illuminating Morrison's 'maternal standpoint' and helping readers and critics understand this difficult terrain. Toni Morrison and Motherhood is also valuable as a resource that addresses and synthesizes a huge body of secondary literature." - Nancy Gerber, author of Portrait of the Mother-Artist: Class and Creativity in Contemporary American Fiction"In addition to presenting a penetrating and original reading of Toni Morrison, O'Reilly integrates the evolving scholarship on motherhood in dominant and minority cultures in a review that is both a composite of commonalities and a clear representation of differences." - Elizabeth Bourque Johnson, University of MinnesotaAndrea O'Reilly is Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University and President of the Association for Research on Mothering. She is the author and editor of several books on mothering, including (with Sharon Abbey) Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation and Mothers and Sons: Feminism, Masculinity, and the Struggle to Raise Our Sons.
