by Toni Morrison

Paperback (Vintage International, 2013)
ISBN 978-0-307-74091-5
145 pages

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: an emotional powerhouse of a novel about a modern Odysseus returning to a 1950s America mined with lethal pitfalls for an unwary Black man

When Frank Money joined the army to escape his too-small world, he left behind his cherished and fragile little sister, Cee. After the war, he journeys to his native Georgia with a renewed sense of purpose in search of his sister, but it becomes clear that their troubles began well before their wartime separation. Together, they return to their rural hometown of Lotus, where buried secrets are unearthed and where Frank learns at last what it means to be a man, what it takes to heal, and—above all—what it means to come home.

View the reading guide for Home on Penguin Random House.

About the author

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019) was an acclaimed American novelist, essayist, editor, and professor. Born in Lorain, Ohio, to working-class parents, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 and earned a master’s degree from Cornell University in 1955.

Morrison began her literary career as an editor at Random House while raising two sons as a single mother. Her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” was published in 1970, followed by “Sula” (1973) and “Song of Solomon” (1977), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her masterpiece “Beloved” (1987), inspired by the true story of an enslaved woman who killed her child rather than see her return to slavery, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In 1993, Morrison became the first African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her other notable works include “Jazz” (1992), “Paradise” (1997), and “A Mercy” (2008). Her writing explored the Black experience in America, particularly that of Black women, addressing themes of identity, racism, community, and history with lyrical prose and unflinching honesty.

Beyond fiction, Morrison was an influential essayist and cultural critic. She taught at Princeton University from 1989 until her retirement in 2006. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Morrison’s profound impact on American literature and her eloquent articulation of the complexities of race and gender continue to resonate long after her death in 2019.

Buy this book via your neighborhood English bookstore in Germany.