The Atlantic

A Documentary That Shows Another Side of Toni Morrison

A new film captures the larger-than-life author in exceedingly human terms.
Source: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders / Magnolia Pictures

One of my white teachers in high school insisted that Toni Morrison would be confusing to me as a reader. So I approached the author’s work with that notion in mind, and quickly realized how wrong my teacher’s assessment was. Morrison’s prose is lush and thick, her plotting complex—but I recognized the characters, the places, the moments. In hindsight, it’s clear that my teacher was unfamiliar with the power and magnitude of the black imagination. When our class finished The Bluest Eye, it wasn’t enough. A group of us turned to Sula, Morrison’s second novel, just so that we could see ourselves again.

“She took the. The film, which opened in select theaters on Friday, is a beautiful, exhaustive, and lovingly personal profile of a brilliant writer who ignited the imaginations of millions.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part

Related Books & Audiobooks