num_pages: 318
description: "They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." So begins this visionary work from a storyteller. Toni Morrison's first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Paradise opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage.In prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem, Toni Morrison challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation of race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present.
language: English
title: Paradise
titlecomplete: Paradise
genres: Fiction, Literature, Classics, Novels, Feminism, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Race, African American
ratings_count: 26370
series: Beloved Trilogy
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Shortlist, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Ohioana Book Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Dublin Literary Award
category: Shortlist
publisher: Chatto & Windus