Published in 1970, The Bluest Eye is the first novel written by future Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Toni Morrison. Set in Lorain, Ohio during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Bluest Eye tells the tale of a young African-American girl named Pecola and the personal, racial, familial and cultural hardships she bears through the eleventh year of her life.
The emotional and physical brutality that Pecola endures, including a rape from her own drunken father, has ensured this book remains at the top of many a book-banners list. Throughout the book, Pecola wishes to become a blue eyed Caucasian girl so she can receive love and acceptance from a family and culture that repeatedly tells her she is "ugly."
Stark, beautifully written and told from many different points of view, The Bluest Eye is a novel of exploration, of opening doors that should never remain closed and of uncanny self reflection. This beautiful piece of literature will most likely mean different things to different readers, but one common thread through everyone who reads it will be this: You won't forget it.
Submitted by Dan@Central
