Toni Morrison's Secret Drive: A Reader-Response Study of the Fiction and Its Rhetoric

The late Toni Morrison was the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Morrison was a powerful writer who wove stories depicting the largely overlooked Black experience in America. Her writing also explored the intersection between gender and race through the lives of Black women. Morrison's writing continues to move people and push readers to reassess their beliefs about what it means to be Black in America. Synthesizing some 250 scholarly works about Morrison's writing, this book examines eight novels as well as the short story "Recitatif" (widely taught in classrooms worldwide). They are analyzed for techniques used to deepen meaning and emotional weight, and reveal Morrison's mastery over prose.