Read and discuss Toni Morrison's first novel The Bluest Eye, the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness". The book's controversial topics of racism, incest, and child molestation have led to numerous attempts to ban the novel from schools and libraries in the United States. Moderated by Ilan Stavans Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (1931 - 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Award-winning, internationally-renowned teacher, essayist, translator, and cultural critic Ilan Stavans is the publisher of Restless Books, the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, and a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary.
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