Sula - Paperback

by Toni Morrison (Author), Jesmyn Ward (Introduction by)

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years - A modern masterpiece about love and kinship, about living in an America birthed from slavery. Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison gives life to characters who struggle with what society tells them to be, and the love they long for and crave as Black women. - With a new introduction by Jesmyn Ward.

"Extravagantly beautiful. . . . Enormously, achingly alive." --The New York Times

Sula and Nel are born in the Bottom--a small town at the top of a hill. Sula is wild, and daring; she does what she wants, while Nel is well-mannered, a mamma's girl with a questioning heart. Growing up they forge a bond stronger than anything, stronger even than the dark secret they have to bear. Strong enough, it seems, to last a lifetime--until, decades later, as the girls become women, Sula's anarchy leads to a betrayal that may be beyond forgiveness.

Front Jacket

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.

Author Biography

Toni Morrison is the author of eleven novels, from The Bluest Eye (1970) to God Help the Child (2015). She received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died in 2019.