Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is very likely to appear on the exam. For a bio of her life, and more info on other works, check out the wikipedia page on her here.

Song of Solomon (1977)

Morrison's third novel, Song of Solomon, brought her national attention. A family chronicle similar to Alex Haley's Roots, the novel follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, a black man living in Chicago, Illinois, from birth to adulthood.

Beloved (1987)

Beloved is loosely based on the life and legal case of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who killed her child to prevent the child from being taken back into slavery. The book's central figure is Sethe, who murdered her two-year-old daughter, Beloved, to save her from a life of slavery. The novel follows in the tradition of slave narratives but also confronts the more painful and taboo aspects of slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. When the novel failed to win the National Book Award, a number of writers protested the omission.