[]
Recitatif
Play sample
  • Published: 20 October 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529983586
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $19.99

Recitatif

Formats & editions
Paperback
20 Oct 2026
Hardback
1 Feb 2022
EBook
3 Feb 2022
Audiobook
3 Feb 2022
Pre-order from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Your Bookstore Abbeys Boomerang Find local retailers Find local retailers Collins Fishpond Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Mighty Ape

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison in this masterful novella about race, ambiguity and the unexpected connections that shape our lives.

A stunning, timeless story about race, friendship, what keeps us apart and what drives us apart, from the one and only Toni Morrison, with an introduction by Zadie Smith.

Twyla and Roberta met in a girls’ shelter as children. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only to meet again later at a diner, a grocery store and then on opposing sides of a protest. The two women are seemingly at opposite ends of every issue, but the persistence of their bond is undeniable.

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.
  • Published: 20 October 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529983586
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $19.99
Categories:

About the author

Toni Morrison

TONI MORRISON is the author of eleven novels and three essay collections. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993 the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died in 2019.
portrait photo of Toni Morrison

Also by Toni Morrison

Beloved
Sula
Song of Solomon
The Bluest Eye
Language as Liberation
Playing In The Dark
The Measure of Our Lives
See all

Praise for Recitatif

Recitatif is the only short story written by the powerhouse novelist . . . Morrison's sharp-eyed treatment of race, racism, and racial hierarchies remains relevant, digging deep into the marrow of society's maladies.

Literary Hub

This smart slippery tale... [is] highly relevant to our times... [Recitatif] serves as a challenge to contemporary novels that prefer to take refuge in racial orthodoxy than unsettle it, as Morrison so brilliantly does here

Claire Allfree, Daily Mail

A compelling exploration of race and relationships

i

So thought-provoking you'll want everyone you know to read it

Daily Mail, *Summer Reads of 2022*

Genius

Bernice McFadden, author of SUGAR, Guardian