Reading Learning Teaching Toni Morrison draws on contemporary scholarship and Morrison's own
commentary to explicate all of her novels published to date including her 2008 novel A Mercy.
Morrison the 1993 Nobel Prize winner is an unabashedly confrontational author. Her profound
and complex novels address problems such as slavery violence poverty and sexual abuse.
Morrison's work encompasses a project of total cultural renewal: she re-imagines and reaffirms
the experience of African Americans from the earliest days of slavery up to the present
avoiding stereotypes or oversimplification. She employs African and Western literary traditions
and conventions as a basis for both structure and critique re-writing some of the «master
narratives» of American culture and history. This book analyzes Morrison's novels in the
context of African American history and literature and provides supplemental material to guide
teachers and students to understand and appreciate Morrison's novels.
