Why did I love this book?
When Beloved was first released, I was already a Morrison fan and looking forward to her latest. But I’d barely cracked the cover when I put it down. I’d never felt such a haunting, repellent force. Weeks went by and I tried again, once more blocked by the same energy. On page 18, Sethe says, “I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house” and it wasn’t the latter that shook me. It was the “tree”—the mark of the whip: something alive and, on some level, growing. Months later I faced the monster again, this time ramming myself through the terror. It would take some emotional fortitude for me to navigate the rushing waters of that literary masterpiece but, at last, I was ready.
39 authors picked Beloved as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times
Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved
It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her…