Fiction and Folklore The Novels of Toni Morrison

"Best-selling novelist Toni Morrison has published five major works: Beloved (which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988), Tar Baby, Song of Solomon, Sula, and The Bluest Eye. In this provocative study of Morrison's novels, Trudier Harris blends fictive and folkloric approaches to illuminate the depth and complexity of the African-American literary heritage. Harris identifies Morrison's primary folkloric strategy as reversal—a process that creates an alternative universe where the antithetical is the norm and the incredible is taken for granted. Thus Morrison succeeds in creating worlds where the line between history and fiction, legend and fact, is permanently blurred. Furthermore, in replicating the processes of folk culture, Morrison encourages readers to participate in the creative process itself."--Back cover.