Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved is a novel inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, who escaped with her family from slavery in Kentucky to freedom in Ohio in 1856. When US Marshals apprehended the family under the Fugitive Slave Act, Margaret Garner murdered one of her children, a daughter, rather than see her enslaved again. In Morrison’s novel, Sethe, the protagonist, and her daughter Denver are haunted by the ghost of the child Sethe killed. A mysterious young woman appears and calls herself Beloved, the name on the tombstone of Sethe’s dead daughter. Sethe believes the woman is her murdered child and guilt overcomes her as Beloved takes over her life. Beloved received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988, and in 1993, Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dedicated to the estimated "sixty million and more” people who died as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, Beloved combines magical and realistic elements to explore themes of love and justice.

Chicago citation style
Melissa Strong. Beloved by Toni Morrison. 2016. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://production.dp.la/primary-source-sets/beloved-by-toni-morrison. (Accessed March 19, 2024.)
APA citation style
Melissa Strong, (2016) Beloved by Toni Morrison. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://production.dp.la/primary-source-sets/beloved-by-toni-morrison
MLA citation style
Melissa Strong. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America <https://production.dp.la/primary-source-sets/beloved-by-toni-morrison>.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.