Living in Ohio with her daughter, she becomes convinced that their home is inhabited by a malevolent spirit, which she believes to be the ghost of her baby, laid to rest in the garden beneath a tombstone marked ‘Beloved’.

Sethe is a runaway slave who continues to be haunted by her memories of the plantation eighteen years after her escape. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is widely regarded as her greatest novel: partly because it won her the Pulitzer Prize, and partly because it is indeed great! Set in the wake of the American Civil War, the novel takes an unflinching look at the true horrors and psychological trauma of slavery. In what became her signature poetic prose, Morrison confronts this difficult theme, as well as those of incest and assault, with an innate humanity, setting the tone for her work to come. The Bluest Eye is a devastating book about the hostility and pain inflicted on vulnerable people by racialized standards of beauty. As a result of this impossible desire, and the trauma she suffers at the hands of others, Pecola’s life begins to unravel. Consistently bullied for her dark skin and made to feel ugly and unloved, Pecola prays for the miracle of blue eyes - a hallmark of white American beauty. The novel follows a young girl named Pecola Breedlove, who grows up in Lorain, Ohio - Morrison’s hometown - in the years following the Great Depression. Written on scraps of paper while Morrison cooked her son’s dinner, The Bluest Eye was published during her time as an editor. If you’re at a loss for where to start with any author as eminent as Toni Morrison, we would always suggest picking up their debut novel. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great classics out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized book recommendation 😉

So instead we’ve curated the perfect route into a lifetime of remarkable writing. So where to start? Choosing the very best Toni Morrison books would be near impossible - and totally subjective. Our point is, you should definitely be reading some Toni Morrison books! And you’ll find there’s a lot to catch up on. More importantly, Morrison has earned a place in the hearts and bookshelves of readers the world over by crystallizing the Black experience throughout American history in prose that is fluid, hypnotic, and flat out gorgeous. In 2012, she was even presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. When she passed away in 2019, she had a long list of accolades to her name: winner of the Pulitzer prize, the first Black female editor at Random House, and the first (and only) Black female to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The late great Toni Morrison was a giant of the literary world and an icon of Black literature. 15 Best Toni Morrison Books: Where to Start

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