Sula (Vintage International) - Softcover

Morrison, Toni

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400033438 ISBN 13: 9781400033430

Publisher: Vintage, 1900

Synopsis

Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal--or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.

"You can't go wrong by reading or re-reading the collected works of Toni Morrison. Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Sula, everything else -- they're transcendent, all of them. You'll be glad you read them."--Barack Obama

About this title

Review:

Toni Morrison's highly acclaimed novel Sula is as gripping on audiotape as it is on paper. The Nobel Prize-winning writer narrates the unabridged version of the book in a rich, soothing voice that mesmerizes listeners with its relaxed and methodical cadence. Sula revolves around the relationship between two little girls growing up in a poor, black neighbourhood nestled high in the hilltops. "The Bottom", as the barrio came to be known, is brimming with eccentric residents but sadly deprived of human warmth (the town actually takes pride in celebrating National Suicide Day). However, out of this bitter, abrasive environment grows a beautiful friendship between Sula and Nel. Their shared secrets and dreams blossom through childhood, but their special bond suffers after the two separate. Sula leaves the Bottom to conquer the unknown cities of America, while Nel becomes a homebody, settling down as a wife and mother. When Sula returns to her hometown, she feels like a stranger; she repels everyone, even the only true friend she ever knew. Morrison's vocal range evokes an extraordinary atmosphere of survival in a harsh and unforgiving world.

Review:

"Extravagantly beautiful. . . . Enormously, achingly alive. . . . A howl of love and rage, playful and funny as well as hard and bitter." --The New York Times

"Exemplary. . . . The essential mysteries of death and sex, friendship and poverty are expressed with rare economy." --Newsweek

"In characters like Sula, Toni Morrison's originality and power emerge." --The Nation

"Enchanting. . . . Powerful." --Chicago Daily News

"Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature." --The New York Review of Books

"Sula is one of the most beautifully written, sustained works of fiction I have read in some time. . . . [Morrison] is a major talent." --Elliot Anderson, Chicago Tribune

"As mournful as a spiritual and as angry as a clenched fist . . . written in language so pure and resonant that it makes you ache." --Playboy

"In the first ranks of our living novelists." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Toni Morrison's gifts are rare: the re-creation of the black experience in America with both artistry and authenticity." --Library Journal

"Should be read and passed around by book-lovers everywhere." --Los Angeles Free Press

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1900
• ISBN 10: 1400033438
• ISBN 13: 9781400033430
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192