Paradise by Toni Morrison audiobook

Paradise

By Toni Morrison
Read by Toni Morrison

Random House Audio 9780804169882
6.45 Hours Abridged
Format : Digital Download (In Stock)
  • $15.00
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    ISBN: 9780307577870

"They shoot the white girl first. With the others they can take their time." Toni Morrison's first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature opens with a horrifying scene of mob violence then chronicles its genesis in a small all-black town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by descendants of free slaves as intent on isolating themselves from the outside world as it once was on rejecting them, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage … Paradise is a tour de force of storytelling power, richly imagined and elegantly composed. Morrison challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth, into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and the way a society can turn on itself until it is forced to explode.

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Summary

Summary

A 1998 New York Times Notable Book for Fiction

An Oprah’s Book Club Selection

"They shoot the white girl first. With the others they can take their time."

Toni Morrison's first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature opens with a horrifying scene of mob violence then chronicles its genesis in a small all-black town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by descendants of free slaves as intent on isolating themselves from the outside world as it once was on rejecting them, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage …

Paradise is a tour de force of storytelling power, richly imagined and elegantly composed. Morrison challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth, into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and the way a society can turn on itself until it is forced to explode.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Morrison is at the top of her form. . . . Impressive, eloquent, and powerfully imagined. The Baltimore Sun
Toni Morrison is an extraordinarily good writer. Two pages into anything she writes one feels the power of her language and the emotional authority behind that language. The Village Voice
Morrison is a terrific storyteller. . . . Her writing evokes the joyful richness of life. Newsday
A breathtaking, risk-taking major work that will have readers feverishly, and fearfully turning the pages. Kirkus Reviews
[A] triumph. . . . The individual stories of both the women and the townspeople reveal Morrison at her best. Publishers Weekly (starred)
Everything is resonant here: the most casual gestures are informed by the facts and myths of genders and race, by our notions of civilization and lawlessness, body and spirit, Christianity and witchcraft. Morrison’s lyrical prose displays great confidence in her readers’ intelligence, demands their unflagging attention, and rewards them generously—with a memorable work of epic range and monumental ambition. People
Morrison [is] a master storyteller. . . . She is at the height of her imaginative powers. New York Daily News
Morrison has brought it all together: the poetry, the emotion, the broad symbolic plan. The New York Times Book Review
Stunning. . . . Morrison at her novelistic best. The New Yorker
Morrison dazzles. The Nation
A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed. . . . The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate. Los Angeles Times  
“Morrison has brought it all together: the poetry, the emotion, the broad symbolic plan.” New York Times Book Review

Reviews

Reviews

Author

Author Bio: Toni Morrison

Author Bio: Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, editor, teacher, and professor. In 2012, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She also received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer Prize for literature, an American Book Award, the Norman Mailer Prize, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, the Condorcet Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, and the Anisfield Wolf Book Award, among others. She wrote twelve novels, including Beloved, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was made into a major motion picture starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download
Category: Fiction/Literary
Runtime: 6.45
Audience: Adult
Language: English