Toni Morrison's Beloved, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Bloom's Guides collection, presents concise critical excerpts from Beloved to provide a scholarly overview of the work. This comprehensive study guide also features "The Story Behind the Story" which details the conditions under which Beloved was written. This title also includes a short biography on Toni Morrison and a descriptive list of characters.
Toni Morrison and Motherhood, by Andrea O'Reilly, provides a critical reading of motherhood and mothering complexly depicted in Morrison's novels from The Bluest Eye to Paradise with an epilog referring to the latest novel, Love. The author closely scrutinizes Morrison's texts, essays, and interviews as well as other critiques of Morrison and feminism to theorize African American women's everyday experiences and practices, which have been largely neglected by white feminists.
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Review “Not many scholars have the opportunity to trail blaze and publish a seminal work; Walters has a just that, and will make a major impact on scholarship in Classics, Black Studies, and Comparative Literature. Walters’ work fosters discussion on how black women have used the classics – as empowering, complicated, subtle; how black women signify off of one another; and generally how a handful of extremely important writers from a local or specific context found universal appeal. Walters moves from Phillis Wheatley to Rita Dove, while also discussing authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison. This is a wonderful array of significant authors.”--Patrice Rankine, Purdue University
Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, is perhaps the most important living American author today, and certainly one of the most popular in college and high school courses. Her novels, including "Sula", "Song of Solomon", "Beloved", and "Paradise", have won almost every major award available to them. In addition, her influence as a critic, book editor, and mentor to other writers has been incalculable. "Critical Companion to Toni Morrison" examines Morrison's life and writing, featuring critical analyses of her work and themes, as well as entries on related topics and relevant people, places, and influences.
