Toni Morrison

What is race and why does it matter? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid? America’s foremost novelist reflects on themes that preoccupy her work and dominate politics: race, fear, borders, mass movement of peoples, desire for belonging. Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a foreword to Toni Morrison’s most personal work of nonfiction to date.

The Origin of Others

Avani Pandya

“Race is the classification of a species, and we are the human race, period. Then what is this other thing - the hostility, the social racism, the Othering?”

- The Origin of Others, Toni Morrison

Through a phenomenonal series of lectures, Morrison analyses what constitutes race, Otherness, colour, sexual violence, brutality and the effects of slavery in today’s world.

She examines the role of literature in romancing slavery through the works of Stowe, Faulkner, Hemingway and others.

She also discusses some of her best works and refers to history, politics and slave narratives in search for answers. From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Garden of Eden, from Recitatif to Beloved, she takes us through a journey of the conditioned and deliberate process of Othering.

The book is of immense value in the face of globalisation, mass immigration, refugee crisis, and the separatist socio-political climate today.

Morrison continues to remain one of the best writers this century has seen and her war for change invariably leaves a trace through her words.

I highly recommend this book - it'll leave you wanting for more.

The Origin of Others

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