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Beloved

Pulitzer Prize Winner

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Beloved

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
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About this listen

 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This "powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author.

“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

“Dazzling. . . . Magical. . . . An extraordinary work.” —The New York Times©1987 Toni Morrison; (P)1998 Random House, Inc. African American Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Haunted Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

“A masterwork. . . . Wonderful. . . . I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

“A triumph.” —Margaret Atwood, The New York Times Book Review

“Toni Morrison’s finest work. . . . [It] sets her apart [and] displays her prodigious talent.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Dazzling. . . . Magical. . . . An extraordinary work.” —The New York Times

“A masterpiece. . . . Magnificent. . . . Astounding. . . . Overpowering.” —Newsweek

“Brilliant. . . . Resonates from past to present.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A brutally powerful, mesmerizing story. . . . Read it and tremble.” —People

“Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature.” —New York Review of Books

“A work of genuine force. . . . Beautifully written.” —The Washington Post

“There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you.” —The New Yorker

“A magnificent heroine . . . a glorious book.” —The Baltimore Sun

“Superb. . . . A profound and shattering story that carries the weight of history. . . . Exquisitely told.” —Cosmopolitan

“Magical . . . rich, provocative, extremely satisfying.” —Milwaukee Journal

“Beautifully written. . . . Powerful. . . . Toni Morrison has become one of America’s finest novelists.” —The Plain Dealer

“Stunning. . . A lasting achievement.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Written with a force rarely seen in contemporary fiction. . . . One feels deep admiration.” —USA Today

“Compelling . . . . Morrison shakes that brilliant kaleidoscope of hers again, and the story of pain, endurance, poetry and power she is born to tell comes right out.” —The Village Voice

“A book worth many rereadings.” —Glamour

“In her most probing novel, Toni Morrison has demonstrated once again the stunning powers that place her in the first ranks of our living novelists.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Heart-wrenching . . . mesmerizing.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Shattering emotional power and impact.” —New York Daily News

“A rich, mythical novel . . . a triumph.” —St. Petersburg Times

“Powerful . . . voluptuous.” —New York
All stars
Most relevant
What a storyteller. What a story. And such a rich experience enhanced by the narrator. Life changing read.

unique, so warm, shocking and beautiful

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I had no expectations of this book and was blown away by its depth. Recommended.

A must read!

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such darkness wrapped in bittersweet poetry. A story of so much survival, struggle and dying. with so much inside, so much between the lines...I am mesmerized. if Toni Morrison could read to me forever...I would be happy. Such beautiful sadness. Too many emotions . just too many. she has a way of describing tiny tiny nuances of feeling. Gush gush.

mesmerizing

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this book is phenomenal and devastating- disturbing and stunning -beautiful. you already know you want to read it- and you will -and here this modern classic is read by the author herself. you couldn’t ask for a more perfect audiobook: her voice is soft and raspy and deep -her intonation for the different characters is subtle but clear.

an opportunity to hear the voice of a true genius read her work. wow. what an experience.

read by the late great Toni Morrison herself

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The poetry of this book is mesmerising. The shocking depiction of slavery, death and escape is set amongst a landscape of beauty, strength and love. Toni Morrison’s reading of her work brings it all to life in a way that would be harder to do by reading the words alone. The story moves between time, place and narrator but even if threads remain dangling and hard to hold on to, it all comes together in a tapestry so rich and evocative it will be hard to forget.

Extraordinary, shocking and beautiful

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This story is like nothing I’ve ever read before and narrated by Toni Morrison herself makes it almost a surreal experience!

❤️

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This story is terrible and beautiful at the same time. It is a privilege to listen to Toni Morrison read it. This is my second ‘reading’ and unlikely to be my last. Be prepared to be sucked in to this story, and moved to your core.

Profound and poetic.

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A difficult book to listen to as it switches narrators and time frames without notice. The story feeds out in disjointed pieces - challenging but a good story. Loved the author's use of language and her poetic turn of phrase.
The narration was very slow and breathless which I initially felt created good atmosphere, but later found annoying so I slightly sped up the narration speed with good effect.

A challenging listen

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There are no words to describe how beautiful this novel is. Its voice and language and imagery are poetic. When read by Toni Morrison herself, it comes alive. I've fallen in love with this book all over again.

Sensational

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I’ve never read Morrison. I’d been meaning to for years and her death hastened the reading. It is such a strange world she shows us. An internal world of foreign logic.

Then her language - so simple and profound and yes, at times poetic.

Morrison has a wonderful reading voice, warm and comforting and calm even as she describes horrors. You can get lost in it. I did.

Beloved - a strange world

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