Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.
Sofia Carmina Coppola is an American filmmaker and former actress. She has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Golden Lion, and a Cannes Film Festival Award. She was also nominated for three BAFTA Awards, as well as a Primetime Emmy Award.
Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress. She is known for her work in independent film with dark and tragic themes, in particular period dramas. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the BAFTA Fellowship, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award and nominations for two Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Song of Solomon is a 1977 novel by American author Toni Morrison, her third to be published. It follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, an African-American man living in Michigan, from birth to adulthood.
Beloved is a 1987 novel by American novelist Toni Morrison. Set in the period after the American Civil War, the novel tells the story of a dysfunctional family of formerly enslaved people whose Cincinnati home is haunted by a malevolent spirit. The narrative of Beloved derives from the life of Margaret Garner, an enslaved person in the slave state of Kentucky who escaped and fled to the free state of Ohio in 1856.
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio, and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness".
Gayl Carolyn Jones is an American writer from Lexington, Kentucky. She is recognized as a key figure in 20th-century African-American literature.
A Mercy is Toni Morrison's ninth novel. It was published in 2008. Set in colonial America in the late 17th century, it is the story of a European farmer, his purchased wife, and his growing household of indentured or enslaved white, Native American, and African characters. It made the New York Times Book Review list of "10 Best Books of 2008" as chosen by the paper's editors. In Fall 2010, A Mercy was chosen for the One Book, One Chicago program. In 2024, it was ranked 47th in the New York Times list of the best 100 books of the 21st century.
Sarah Ladipo Manyika FRSL is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays and an active member of the literary community, particularly supporting and amplifying young writers and female voices. She is the author of two well-received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora (2022), and her writing has appeared in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
The Cardturner is a novel written by Newbery Medal winner Louis Sachar and published by Delacorte Press in May 2010.
Home is the tenth novel by the American author Toni Morrison, originally published in 2012 by Alfred A. Knopf. Set in the 1950s, Morrison's Home rewrites the narrative of the time period. The novel tells the story of 24-year-old war veteran Frank Money as he navigates America amidst his trauma from serving in the Korean War. After receiving a letter that alerts him of the danger his younger sister, Cee, has found herself in, he sets out on a journey back home to Lotus, Georgia.
Roxane Gay is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).
Patricia Cumper, MBE, FRSA, FRSL, also known as Pat Cumper, is a British playwright, producer, director, theatre administrator, critic and commentator. She was the artistic director and CEO of Talawa Theatre Company from 2006 to 2012, and she has adapted novels for radio and television, including books by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Andrea Levy, Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou and others.
Bad Feminist: Essays is a 2014 collection of essays by cultural critic, novelist and professor Roxane Gay. Bad Feminist explores being a feminist while loving things that could seem at odds with feminist ideology. Gay's essays engage pop culture and her personal experiences, covering topics such as the Sweet Valley High series, Django Unchained, and Gay's own upbringing as a Haitian-American.
Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian American novelist. Her work, most notably her 2016 debut novel Homegoing and her 2020 novel Transcendent Kingdom, features themes of lineage, generational trauma, and Black and African identities. At the age of 26, Gyasi won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016 and the 2017 American Book Award. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020. As of 2019, Gyasi lives in Brooklyn, New York.
A God in Ruins is Kate Atkinson's ninth novel, published in 2015. The main character, Teddy Todd, is the younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist in Atkinson's 2013 novel, Life After Life. Atkinson calls it the "companion piece" rather than a sequel to the earlier novel. The first book spans half a century, including World War II; the second is set entirely within it. It won the Costa Book Award for Novel in 2015.
Detective Sergeant/Detective Inspector Logan "Lazarus" McRae is the protagonist of a series of detective novels by Scottish crime writer Stuart MacBride, first introduced in 2005's Cold Granite. He is an officer of the Aberdeen police force.
The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations, published in 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S., is a non-fiction book by Toni Morrison, in which are collected 43 pieces of writing, structured into three sections: "The Foreigner’s Home", "Black Matter(s)" and “God's Language". The collection was also published in the U.K. in 2019 by Chatto & Windus under the title Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations.
