The Bluest Eye

First published in 1970, Toni Morrison’s debut novel, The Bluest Eye, is a haunting portrait of childhood, racial prejudice and the devastating power of an imposed ideal of beauty. Set in Lorain, Ohio, in the years following the Great Depression, it centres on Pecola Breedlove, a young Black girl who longs for blue eyes, believing that the transformation will make her beautiful and finally earn her the love and acceptance she craves. Through the perspectives of sisters Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, Morrison reveals a community in which racism and colourism penetrate the most intimate corners of family life, shaping how children learn to see themselves and one another.

With its shifting voices, fractured chronology and lyrical, unflinching prose, The Bluest Eye examines the violence of social exclusion and the insidious influence of popular culture, family and inherited prejudice. Morrison’s first novel established many of the concerns that would define her subsequent work, including the complexities of Black identity, the vulnerability of childhood and the enduring consequences of historical oppression. Though initially met with limited attention, the novel has since become a central work of twentieth-century American literature, remarkable for its ability to expose the cruelty concealed beneath conventional notions of beauty and innocence.

From the book

“How, I wonder, can it be so neat and nasty at the same time?”

— Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

On The Bluest Eye

“So charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry.”

— John Leonard, The New York Times