Sapphire

* READ THE NOVEL THAT INSPIRED THE FILM PRECIOUS * This 25th Anniversary Edition includes a new preface from Tayari Jones, and a new afterword by the author. This is the story of Precious Jones, a sixteen year old illiterate black girl who has never been out of Harlem. She is pregnant by her own father for the second time, and kicked out of school. Placed in an alternative teaching programme, she learns to read and write. This is Precious's diary, in which she honestly records her relationships and her life. 'The Color Purple for the nineties' Vogue 'Sapphire's vibrant, unindulgent first novel has you cheering the awesome Precious on until the last page' Mail on Sunday 'Has all the power and vehemence of rap...brutal in its defence of the vulnerable' Independent 'Part wishful prayer, part manifesto, mingling poetry and humour...splendid, turbulent, bracing language...its music takes you over, its story grips... A voice to remember' Scotland on Sunday 'Harrowing yet hilarious... packs a powerful punch' Guardian

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Chenay Kamara

The author has a message and the reader's job is to decode that message as thoroughly as possible. A good reader is like a detective, she say, looking for clues in the text. A good reader is like you Precious, she say. Passionate! Passionately involved with whut they are reading. 

When an author and a director enter into an agreement to make a film, there is a transaction far more consequential than the legal contract, the financial arrangement, or even the decisions about represen- tation and interpretation. There is an issue of trust. For me, the trust I put in Lee Daniels was simple: I trusted him to make a work of art, and he never wavered. In my opinion, and in agreement with A. O. Scott of the New York Tines, Precious is a genuine work of art.

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