La obra maestra de la premio Nobel de Literatura Toni Morrison, «la mejor novela norteamericana de los últimos cincuenta años» según The New York Times, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer y del American Book Award

«No puedo imaginar la literatura norteamericana sin esta novela.»
John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

Para escribir esta magnífica historia, merecedora del Premio Pulitzer, Toni Morrison se inspiró en la vida real de una esclava afroamericana, Margaret Garner, que en 1856 escapó de una plantación en Kentucky y consiguió llegar al estado libre de Ohio. A punto de ser recapturada, Margaret tomó la trágica decisión de sacrificar a su hija para salvarla de una vida en cautiverio.

En estas páginas, Sethe es la esclava prófuga que vendió su cuerpo para grabar el nombre de su hija muerta en la lápida: diez minutos por «Beloved», veinte por «Querida Beloved». Muchos años después, Sethe vive en Ohio con Denver, su hija adolescente, y Paul D., un viejo amigo que también fue esclavo. Todos intentan prosperar y olvidar el pasado, hasta que un día aparece una joven que dice llamarse Beloved. Tiene la edad que tendría su hija si viviese y sabe ciertas cosas que sugieren que podría serlo.

Beloved se convirtió de inmediato en un clásico cuando se publicó en 1987. El crítico John Leonard escribió en Los Angeles Times: «No concibo la literatura norteamericana sin esta novela». Casi dos décadas después, The New York Times la eligió como la mejor novela norteamericana de los últimos cincuenta años.

Reseñas:
«Uno de los libros por lo que vale la pena volver a la biblioteca (aunque sea virtual). Obra esencial de la Premio Nobel de Literatura.»
Begoña Alonso, Elle

«Imbricando un realismo desabrido con una poderosa imaginación fantástica, [...] Beloved se convirtió de inmediato en un clásico».
Zenda

«Toni Morrison fue un gigante de su época y de la nuestra. Todo el mundo debería

leer Beloved.»
Margaret Atwood, The New York Times

«Beloved es la gran novela norteamericana no escrita del siglo XIX, trata de cosas sobre las que jamás se escribió y que laten sin embargo en el fondo de novelas sí escritas, por Melville, por Poe.»
A. S. Byatt

«Una maravillosa artesana a la que la gente tiende a pasar por alto. Es tan genial e innovadora como Faulkner, García Márquez y Woolf.»
The New York Times

«La mejor obra de Toni Morrison. [...] Muestra su prodigioso talento.»
Chicago Sun-Times

«Si hay una novela con la que empezar a leer a Toni Morrison, es Beloved. [...] Morrison es un tesoro norteamericano.»
Biblioteca Pública de Nueva York

«He terminado una segunda vuelta de Beloved, la misteriosa y tan fascinante novela de Toni Morrison, donde el mundo de los esclavos negros se vuelve un asunto íntimo y a la vez mágico. [...] Y las protagonistas son las mujeres, que todo lo desafían, y son ellas mismas la libertad.»
Sergio Ramírez, Babelia

«Su obra es un bello y significativo desafío a nuestras conciencias y nuestra imaginación moral.»
Barack Obama

«Beloved te hace sentir que todo lo que has escrito es aburrido y sin vida. El nivel de destreza, la perfección y la belleza de las oraciones, el alcance de la imaginación, el orden del lenguaje en torno al dolor indescriptible. Es buenísimo. Además, es nuestra historia de terror más estadounidense. [...] Sé que Morrison no escribía para mí, pero moldeó mi escritura y le estoy eternamente agradecida.»
Carmen María Machado

Toni Morrison, ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura 1993, parte de la realidad de una chiquilla desgraciada para tratar temas como el concepto de belleza impuesto, la voz femenina o la infancia truncada, y lo consigue con una historia dura y deliciosa al mismo tiempo.

Pecola es una niña pequeña que vive con sus padres y tiene una prima que se llama Claudia. Le gustan las muñecas y las caléndulas, que no le gustan a nadie excepto a ella. Pecola es negra y cree que es fea porque no se parece a Shirley Temple. Y tiene un truco para desaparecer cuando sus padres se pelean o su padre la molesta por las noches: piensa que tiene unos preciosos ojos azules, que todo el mundo admira su belleza y que las otras niñas la envidian. Pero ese sueño nunca se convertirá en realidad y Pecola seguirá atrapada en la triste vida que le ha tocado en suerte.

Reseñas:
«Una exploración de la raza y el género de la ganadora del Nobel, todo un clásico estadounidense. Con su exploración de las dinámicas entre el racismo interiorizado y la autoestima, [...] Morrison reflexiona sobre cómo la sociedad ensalza todo lo relacionado con los blancos #asociados con la belleza, la pureza y la inocencia#, algo que puede hacer mella en la autoestima de una persona y llevarla por la senda de la destrucción.»
Freddie Braun, Vogue ("6 novelas fundamentales de autores negros que deberías añadir a tu lista de lecturas"

«Toni Morrison se ha convertido en la D. H. Lawrence de la psique negra, transformando individuos en fuerzas, idiosincrasias en inevitabilidad.»
New York Magazine

An illuminating, electrifying exploration of the work of Toni Morrison by an award-winning novelist and Harvard professor

Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and one of our most beloved writers, has inspired generations of readers. But her artistic genius is often overshadowed by her monumental public persona, perhaps because, as Namwali Serpell puts it, “she is our only truly canonical black, female writer—and her work is highly complex.” In On Morrison, Serpell brings her unique experience as both an award-winning writer and professor who teaches a course on Morrison to illuminate her masterful experiments with literary form.

This is Morrison as you’ve never encountered her before, a journey through her oeuvre—her fiction and criticism, as well as her lesser-known dramatic works and poetry—with contextual guidance, archival discoveries, and original close readings. At once accessible and uncompromisingly rigorous, On Morrison is a primer not only on how to read one of the most significant American authors of all time, but also on how to read great works of literature in general. This dialogue on the page between two black women artist-readers is stylish, edifying, and thrilling in its scope and intelligence.

This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines from their close-knit childhood in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation.

Nel Wright has chosen to stay in the place where she was born, to marry, raise a family, and become a pillar of the black community. Sula Peace has rejected the life Nel has embraced, escaping to college, and submerging herself in city life. When she returns to her roots, it is as a rebel and a wanton seductress. Eventually, both women must face the consequences of their choices. Together, they create an unforgettable portrait of what it means and costs to be a black woman in America.

Celebrate the release of Toni At Random with Dana A. Williams!

EVENT DEETS

When: Monday, October 13 @ 7PM

Where: Kindred Stories ( 2310 Elgin St. , #2, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming

ABOUT THE BOOK

An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.

A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.

Toni Morrison herself had great enthusiasm about Dana Williams's work on this story, generously sharing memories and thoughts with the author over the years, even giving her the book's title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison’s contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dana A. Williams is Professor of African American literature and Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. She is former president of the College Language Association and the Modern Languages Association, and is the author of In the Light of Likeness—Transformed: The Literary Art of Leon Forrest. She is also the editor of several books. Her work has been published in prestigious journals, including PMLA, CLA Journal, African American Review, Early American Literature, American Literary History, and the Langston Hughes Review. Her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She co-directs the Center for Medical Humanities and Health Justice, a Mellon Foundation-funded collaboration between Howard and Georgetown universities. Williams lives in Maryland.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Dr. Tara T. Green is the CLASS Distinguished Professor and Chair of African American Studies at the a University of Houston. She also has a joint appointment in the English department. Dr. Green is a literature and interdisciplinary scholar with degrees in English. She is the award-winning author and editor of six books, including Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar Nelson and See Me Naked: Black Women Defining Pleasure During the Interwar Era as well as the co-curator of the Triad Black Lives Matter Collection housed at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Otherworldly Mothering argues that literary works by Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Paule Marshall, Audre Lorde, and Toni Cade Bambara reimagine subjectivity in processual and relational terms through a rewriting of maternal praxis, a technique that unveils the historical continuities between antebellum and neoliberal America. By refiguring materials drawn from the tradition of slave narratives, Black women’s literature of the 1970s and 1980s often conjures maternal otherworlds where it is possible to engage alternative modes of being.

In conversation with the work of Hortense Spillers, Sylvia Wynter, and Saidiya Hartman, Marika Ceschia analyzes how Black women writers find in the maternal a means of creatively reenvisioning the figure of the human. Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Naylor’s Linden Hills, Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow, Lorde’s Zami, and Bambara’s The Salt Eaters each change the strictures that dictate how the human is performed. As these texts show, maternal praxis can have a transformative ontological effect: confronting the toll exerted by centuries of racial violence, these writers reclaim the maternal as a site of subject formation.

Otherworldly Mothering reassesses canonical works of twentieth-century Black women’s literature alongside theoretical debates around the ontology of the human, antiblackness, and Black motherhood. Ceschia proposes a reappraisal of maternal praxis that challenges neoliberal discourse and questions recent critical turns toward Afropessimism and posthumanism.