Toni Morrison

The essays in this volume represent the range of different approaches which critics have taken to Toni Morrison's work. However, the essays have not neglected the traditional fare of scholarship and provide insights into the structure, themes, language and context of her novels which will prove invaluable to new readers and those already familiar with her work. The essays have been selected also for their contribution to current debates in African-American literary criticism. African-American and European critics discuss Morrison's work in relation to debates over, for example, the essentialist or syncretist nature of African-American writing, the complex nature of African-American identities, the black nationalist aesthetic, and the relevance of European and non-European critical models to black American writers.