Sula

About the Book
Nominated for the National Book Award, this rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines—from their growing up together in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation.

Nel Wright chooses to remain in the place of her birth, to marry, to raise a family, and to become a pillar of the tightly-knit black community. Sula Peace rejects all that Nel has accepted. She escapes to college and submerges herself in city life. When she returns to her roots, it is as a rebel, a mocker and a wanton sexual seductress. Both women must suffer the consequences of their choices; both must decide if they can afford to harbor the love they have for each other; and both combine to create an unforgettable rendering of what it means and costs to exist and survive as a black woman in America.

Hailed by critics for its stunning language and its original, honest depiction of the black way of life after the Civil War, Sula is a lyrical blend of myth and magic, as real as a history lesson, and as enchanting as a fable.


About the Author
"I wanted certain kinds of books, and since they weren't available, I would write them. I wrote Sula so that I could read it when I got through." — Toni Morrison

Her work is larger than life, bigger than the pages on which it is written. It's the type of writing readers relish and critics applaud. Her words are so perfectly formed that other writers weep.

"Her stories are fiction, but nowhere will you find greater truths about life. She laid the foundation of my love for reading, and for all those who asked the question, 'Toni Morrison again?' with my fourth selection of her work, I say with certainty there would have been no Oprah's Book Club if this woman had chosen not to share her love of words with the world." — Oprah

Toni Morrison has received nearly every writing award possible, culminating in her being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993.


Get more resources on Sula, an Oprah's Book Club selection.

View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.