At once the ideal introduction to the legendary Nobel Prize winner and a lovely and moving keepsake for her devoted readers: a treasury of quotations from her work. With a foreword by Zadie Smith.
“She was our conscience. Our seer. Our truthteller.” —Oprah Winfrey
This inspirational book juxtaposes quotations, one to a page, drawn from Toni Morrison’s entire body of work, both fiction and nonfiction—fromThe Bluest EyetoGod Help the Child,fromPlaying in the DarktoThe Source of Self-Regard—to tell a story of self-actualization. It aims to evoke the totality of Toni Morrison’s literary vision.
Its compelling sequence of flashes of revelation—stunning for their linguistic originality, keenness of psychological observation, and philosophical profundity—addresses issues of abiding interest in Morrison’s work: the reach of language for the ineffable; transcendence through imagination; the self and its discontents; the vicissitudes of love; the whirligig of memory; the singular power of women; the original American sin of slavery; the bankruptcy of racial oppression; the complex humanity and art of black people.The Measure of Our Livesbrims with elegance of style and mind and moral authority.
