The Bluest Eye

Not only a story but an awe-inspiring poem that confronts beauty itself.

Guardian

So charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry

New York Times

I imagine if our greatest American novelist, William Faulkner, were alive today he would herald Toni Morrison's emergence as a kindred spirit... Discovering a writer like Toni Morrison is the rarest of pleasures

Washington Post

The Bluest Eye is a fine book, a lament for all starved and stunted children everywhere

Daily Telegraph

Morrison's style rivets the reader...her synaesthetic, often rhythmic, even chanting prose recalls both Faulkner and Emily Dickinson

The Times Literary Supplement

Toni Morrison makes me believe in God. She makes me believe in a divine being, because luck and genetics don’t seem to come close to explaining her

Guardian

This story commands attention, for it contains one black girl's universe

Newsweek

A profoundly successful work of fiction... Taut and understated, harsh in its detachment, sympathetic in its truth...it is an experience

Detroit Free Press

I imagine if our greatest American novelist, William Faulkner, were alive today he would herald Toni Morrison's emergence as a kindred spirit... Discovering a writer like Toni Morrison is the rarest of pleasures

The Washington Post

Searing and haunting... [The Bluest Eye] is a unique piece of literature because it is both timeless and relevant

Bernice McFadden, author of SUGAR, Guardian