Author(s): Toni Morrison

Fiction | Staff Favourites | Vijeta's Book Talkers

Stunningly-designed new editions of Toni Morrison's best-known novels, published by Vintage Classics in celebration of her life and work.WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, AUTHOR OF QUEENIEPecola Breedlove longs for blond hair and blue eyes, so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the marigolds in her garden will not bloom, and her wish will not come true. Pecola's life is about to change in other painful and devastating ways.A powerful interrogation of what it means to conform to an idea of beauty, The Bluest Eye asks vital questions about race, class and gender and remains one of Toni Morrison's most unforgettable works.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: VIJETA

This is my favourite Toni Morrison novel; one I always revisit every few or so years. It’s a blistering look at the perceptions of race and class in America’s deep south, set in Morrison’s own hometown. It touches on an aspect of the race discussion that is absent in a lot of similar novels: racism and prejudice within your own race. Pecola's story of ostracisation within her own community is, unfortunately, an all-too-common tale, and a conversation still waiting to happen. There are a few depictions of heavy topics like incest and child sexual abuse, so do be wary. However, it is Morrison's unflinching honesty that segments this book (and her) as a cornerstone of African-American literature. 

I'm a firm believer that good literature makes you uncomfortable because it touches a nerve you didn't know was so sensitive, and in this regard, The Bluest Eye does not disappoint.