One of the world’s most famous and influential authors, Toni Morrison’s canon spans decades and topics. Morrison’s work dedicates itself to examining the Black American experience, from short stories to essays and speeches to her beloved novels. The author mines the systems of racism and how they can be fixed and explores the depths of complex human emotions like grief, trauma, love, and joy.
Morrison is the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Black woman to serve as senior fiction editor for Random House, and an incredible force known as the “Conscience of America.”
1. The Bluest Eye (1970)
Morrison’s debut novel, The Bluest Eye, occasionally appears on the banned books list because of the controversial topics it explores, such as incest, racism, and child molestation. Set in Lorain, Ohio, the novel follows the life of Pecola, a young Black girl growing up in the United States after the Great Depression.
Unafraid of difficult conversations, Morrison doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable subjects and allows those uncomfortable subjects to guide her into an important conversation about perception beyond beauty and how perception can negatively impact us all. Pecola, the main character, desires nothing more than blue eyes, but the blue eyes she wants represent her desire to see the world differently just as much as she would like to be seen differently.
2. Sula (1973)
Sula tackles the ideas of gender, race, community, and that strange place between “good” and “evil” as Morrison tells the story of Nel and Sula in the small Black community of Bottom, Ohio.
Using Nel and Sula as opposing characters, Morrison makes room for a conversation about “good” and “right” versus “evil” and “bad.” She sets up a dynamic that specifically allows readers into the moment that divides the two women, which will provide the framework for the judgment of their adulthood to allow readers room to formulate their thoughts on Nel and Sula outside of the community’s judgments.
While Morrison still examines race in Sula, the deeper purpose of the novel rests in exploring one’s self, the enduring love of friendship, and how our histories affect us all.
3. Song of Solomon (1977)
Song of Solomon follows the life of Macon “Milkman” Dead III, a Black man living in Michigan who seeks to understand his ancestry. At its core, Song of Solomon, the title pulled from a book of the Bible, confronts racism and the intergenerational scars it leaves.
While Morrison’s work mostly consists of female protagonists, Song of Solomon tells the story from Milkman’s perspective. In Conversations with Toni Morrison, she wrote, “I chose the man… because I thought he had more to learn than a woman would have. I started with a man and was amazed at how little men taught one another in the book… So that the presence of Pilate, and the impact that all the other women had on Milkman’s life, came as a bit of a surprise to me.” Though it might not be told through a woman’s perspective, Song of Solomon is a powerful story to explain the oft-overlooked significance of Black women in the Black man’s experience.
4. Tar Baby (1981)
In her fourth novel, Morrison explores the intersections of race and privilege, wealth and class, and love and reality.
In Tar Baby, Morrison puts Black and White relationships front and center and, in doing so, allows room to play with and peel back the layers of the Black female experience in a racialized world. Tar Baby is a more metaphorical examination of the racism of gender and race, with the more literal examination focused on identity.
To read Tar Baby is to understand Morrison’s transition from the literal and bold statements she made in her first three novels.
5. Recitatif (1983)
“Recitatif” focuses on Twyla and Roberta, two girls who meet in a children’s shelter. One girl is Black, and the other is white, though Morrison intentionally forgoes explaining which is which. Twyla and Roberta stay friends throughout their time at the shelter but eventually go their separate ways.
They reunite multiple times in their lives, many times at high tension points in racial relations in the United States, and they continue to explore their relationship with one another because of and despite their race and the climate of the country.
6. Beloved (1987)
One of Morrison’s most famous novels, Beloved, tells the story of Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman living in a haunted Cincinnati home. The novel grapples with the trauma of slavery and what that does to individuals and families.
The non-linear narrative follows Sethe and her daughter, Denver. Eight years before the start of the book, Sethe and Denver lost Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother, and Howard and Buglar, Sethe’s sons, ran off. At the start of the book, Paul D., a formerly enslaved man who was enslaved on the same plantation as Sethe, arrives. He quickly moves in with Denver and Sethe, and a few days later, a strange woman named Beloved arrives. Paul D. and Beloved butt heads throughout the novel, and as tensions rise in the house, the entire household risks falling apart at the seams.
Beyond the fact that Beloved stands as Morrison’s most famous work, it earns a spot on any Morrison beginner’s reading list because of the challenge reading it offers. Beloved is not easy. It defies the “warm and fuzzy” feelings fiction so often provides. In Beloved, Morrison leans into the teaching and less into the gratification, hoping that readers understand humans as flawed, complex, and not always “good.”
7. Jazz (1992)
Jazz plays out against the backdrop of the Harlem Jazz Age of the 1920s. Morrison explores another non-linear narrative as she tells the story of a love triangle between Violet, Joe, and Dorcas.
As the second in Morrison’s Beloved trilogy, Jazz continues the theme of violence as romance and the challenging ways that love works in life. Critics have called Jazz one of Morrison’s most challenging works as it seeks to cover a lot in a short period. Still, Morrison also said it was her favorite novel to write, earning it an essential spot on any Morrison lover’s reading list.
8. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992)
Morrison’s first work of nonfiction, Playing in the Dark, explores “the effect that living in a historically racialized society has had on American writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” She writes about the place of Black Americans in the overall American literary landscape, exploring the way white authors represent them and the way Black people represent themselves.
As a Black woman author writing in a post-Civil Rights Movement era, Morrison’s perspective on whiteness and the literary imagination couldn’t be more important. In addition to her experience as a writer, Morrison served as the senior fiction editor for Random House and deeply understood how whiteness affected literature, making her particularly well-poised to dive deep into the conversation.
9. The Nobel Lecture in Literature (1993)
In 1993, Toni Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Upon accepting her award, Morrison gave an incredible speech to the gathered audience in Stockholm, Sweden. The speech she gives tells a folk story that serves as a representation of the work Morrison sought to accomplish with her writing.
While her Nobel Prize speech might not feel as grand as some of her other writings, it still deserves a read by anyone seeking to get to know Morrison’s writing and her canon overall. Even in her death, her incredible, history-making success as a writer deserves to be celebrated at every opportunity.
10. Arguing Immigration: (1994)
This essay collection spans political parties and covers a host of issues. While Morrison didn’t write all of Arguing Immigration, she contributed an essay titled “On the Backs of Blacks,” which confronted the United States’ systemic historical racism.
Morrison’s essay alone puts Arguing Immigration squarely into the “must-read” category for Morrison’s canon, but what makes it stand out especially is how the book serves as a representation of how Morrison continued to work in conversation with the world around her even as she moved back in time to plumb the depths of history for understanding.
11. The Dancing Mind (1996)
In 1996, Morrison accepted The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The Dancing Mind collects Morrison’s speech on the importance of writing, the challenges, and the beauty of writing.
Reading The Dancing Mind allows audiences to understand Morrison’s perspective on the art of writing. Reading this book allows for a look behind the curtain of her craft and stands out as especially essential for her fans, who are also aspiring authors.
12. Paradise (1997)
Morrison’s first novel, after winning the Nobel Prize, centers on the town of Ruby, Oklahoma, an all-Black town founded by the descendants of formerly enslaved individuals. Paradise completes Morrison’s Beloved trilogy and, like the two other titles in the series, examines the idea of violence as love.
In this final installation, Morrison explores religion and holiness in a way none of her other novels quite manage. Paradise centers on a building that historically served as a Native American boarding school. These institutions were notorious for the trauma they inflicted, and then they became a haven for women on the fringes of society.
13. The Big Box (1999)
Morrison’s first illustrated children’s book tells the tale of three children confined to a cardboard box by adults. The children want freedom and to express themselves, but they have to figure out how to do so within the confines of the cardboard box.
Not all titles by famous authors have to be serious, and while The Big Box certainly possesses underlying adult themes, overall, it feels fun and lighthearted. When diving into an author’s canon, reading their off-the-wall, out-of-the-norm titles serves just as important of a purpose as reading their prize winners.
14. Love (2002)
Set in a small town in Ohio, Love tells the story of Christine and Heed, two women brought together by their love for the same man, Bill Cosey. Christine, Cosey’s granddaughter, and Heed, his widow, once loved one another, but after a fight divides them, they have to learn how to live with each other in Cosey’s mansion after his death. Confronted with the pressures of society as well as the other women of Cosey’s life, the two women face their demons and struggles.
Love presents exactly what the title would suggest – many forms of love. Throughout the novel, the emphasis on platonic and self-love takes center stage. While this novel didn’t receive the critical acclaim others did, it still can’t be missed in a quality read of Morrison’s work.
15. Remember: The Journey to School Integration (2004)
Over decades, Morrison collected countless archival photos that depicted major historical moments in the work to desegregate school systems. Remember tells the fictional story of the children who experienced schooling in the era of “separate but equal.” The fictional representation of the children allows audiences to enter an otherwise underexplored perspective.
Reading Morrison’s take on a child’s perspective during an incredibly traumatic time in American history allows audiences to understand both the time and Morrison’s feelings on desegregation.
16. What Moves at the Margin (2008)
This collection of Morrison’s non-fiction writing gathers her essays, reviews, and speeches from 1971 to 2002. The first section, “Family and History,” includes writings about Black women, Black history, and her own family. The second section, “Writers and Writing,” explores writers she admired and books she reviewed or edited at Random House. Finally, “Politics and Society” allows Morrison to share her feelings on the role of literature in the greater American society.
Getting the best understanding of a writer and their ability requires reading all of their work, even their speeches or the reviews they wrote for other authors. Truly knowing them as a writer and author begins with digging into the work that doesn’t get as much exposure as their popular works. Morrison’s What Moves at the Margin allows readers to see into her mind more and her character’s less.
17. A Mercy (2008)
In A Mercy, Morrison traces the evils of slavery back to the budding nation’s earliest days, furthering the work she did in Beloved by examining a fraught mother-daughter relationship and the effects of trauma through generations. Set in a small town in Oklahoma, A Mercy follows the story of Florens, a young enslaved woman sold to Jacob Vaark, an enslaver who seems to collect women, including his wife, whom he purchased.
A Mercy reaches further in history than any of Morrison’s other novels and feels almost like a tie that brings together all of her other novels.
18. Burn This Book: Notes on Literature (2009)
Edited and contributed to by Toni Morrison, Burn This Book: Notes on Literature explores censorship and the value of the American right to free speech. The essays cover a range of topics, all relating to literature and how authors exercise their right to free speech, even as they challenge censorship and how their speech is hindered.
Sure, Morrison’s essay contribution to Burn This Book can’t be missed, but the most important reason to read it lies in the fact that she edited the collection. She selected all the essays, choosing exactly what she knew would connect everything and tell the story of literature that she sought to express.
19. Home (2012)
Morrison tackles the United States’ treatment of Black veterans in Home, a novel centered on Frank Money and his relationship with his family. Frank comes home from the Korean War only to realize that nothing about the status of Black men in the United States changes, even as veterans. Returning to his small hometown in Georgia to rescue his sister, Cee, from an abusive situation, Frank must confront the physical and mental scars of his time at war and his subsequent return home.
Home addresses PTSD in Black soldiers in a way so few novels do. Morrison beautifully weaves together the systemic oppression and racism Black people endured in the South with the painful and challenging situation that Black veterans endured when they returned from the war.
20. God Help the Child (2015)
The last novel Morrison wrote, God Help the Child, explores childhood trauma and the way it shapes lives. The story focuses on Bride, a woman with skin so dark it almost appears blue. A successful, bold, and beautiful woman, Bride struggles internally with the effects of her mother’s abuse. Light-skinned and angry at her child, Bride’s mother failed to offer her the sort of love and kindness she needed until Bride told a lie that changed the life of a woman and forever affected her own.
At the core of God Help the Child rests an understanding of colorism that Morrison navigates incredibly. She examines the way colorism exists as systemic in the wider community of the United States while also examining how it impacts Black people within Black communities specifically.
21. The Origin of Others (2017)
In this non-fiction work, Morrison tackles the idea of the “Other,” exploring how and why Othering occurs and addressing why it plays such a big role in her writing. She digs into the subjects and situations that impact her work, including race, fear, love, borders, and the human condition.
In any upper-level English course, the word “Other” (capital “O”) often gets bandied about. That “Other” comes under incredible scrutiny in The Origin of Others. Morrison does some of her finest academic, exploratory work in this book. She leaves nothing on the table, digging into every situation and setting to get to the heart of “Other.”
22. Mouth Full of Blood (2019)
Mouth Full of Blood collects four decades’ worth of Morrison’s non-fiction work into one edition. The book covers everything from her speech to graduates and visitors at America’s Black Holocaust Museum, a prayer for those lost in 9/11, her Nobel lecture, a eulogy for James Baldwin, and so much more.
Released the same year Morrison died, Mouth Full of Blood is a crucial read for many reasons, but most importantly because it collects never-before-published non-fiction that reflects huge moments in literary history, world history, and Morrison’s personal life. To read Mouth Full of Blood is to understand Morrison.
23. Goodness and the Literary Imagination (2019)
In a deep and powerful exploration, Morrison digs into what goodness is, where it comes from, and how it exists in literature and the literary imagination. Morrison mines handfuls of texts for the essence of and creation of literary goodness, seeking it in texts from across time.
So many of Morrison’s novels confront the idea of “goodness,” and so it feels like a natural next step that she would explore “goodness” in a non-fiction setting. Goodness and the Literary Imagination focuses all of Morrison’s fiction work into a beautifully crafted, academic exploration that continues and completes the hard work her fiction began.
24. The Source of Self-Regard (2019)
The Source of Self-Regard pulls a smaller and more concise selection of Morrison’s best non-fiction works, hitting the highlights and collecting them all in a slim, accessible edition. The curated selection brings together what many consider the essential Morrison works.
While nothing new comes from The Source of Self-Regard, the book’s power lies in the precise selections to create the title. Published in the year of Morrison’s death, the book is a tribute to the incredible work completed throughout her career.
25. Morrison’s Eternal Influence
Taught in classrooms worldwide, Toni Morrison’s titles bring together her singular experience as a Black woman and a literary giant and the Black experience throughout the United States. Morrison’s steadfast, unwavering desire to truly understand and examine the Black experience will keep her forever as a pillar of American literary influence and one of the world’s most incredible women.
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