October’s Anisfield-Wolf Book Club selection is 1988 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Fiction winner, Beloved by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison has said that Beloved is the first novel in a trilogy about love. The second novel in that trilogy, Jazz, was published in 1992. Set in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, the novel pieces together the story of a love triangle in a narrative form that imitates the rhythms of jazz music. The third novel, Paradise, was published in 1998. It portrays the lives of the townspeople of Ruby, Oklahoma, who believe their community is “the one all-black town worth the pain,” and the women who inhabit the abandoned convent just outside town, whom the townspeople wish to exclude from their Eden. In 1993 Morrison received the Nobel Prize in literature for her six novels to that date. She was the first African American and the first black woman of any nationality ever to receive that prize.
Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, a small, racially mixed steel town. Her grandparents were all originally from the South, and Morrison credits her family with giving her a rich foundation in the language and rhythms of African American culture. She has said she was born into a family of storytellers, and considers her father’s folktales and her mother’s singing as examples of the uniquely black language she absorbed as a child. After graduating with honors from Lorain public schools, Morrison received a bachelor’s degree from Howard University in 1953. In 1955 she earned a master’s degree in English from Cornell University, where she wrote her thesis on alienation in the works of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. She taught at Texas Southern University for two years before accepting a teaching position at Howard.
While teaching at Howard, she married Jamaican architect Harold Morrison and gave birth to two sons. She later said it was the “powerlessness” she felt during her years as a wife and a mother of small children that led her to begin writing. In 1964 Morrison and her husband divorced, and she took a job in Syracuse, New York, as a textbook editor for Random House. In 1968 she moved to Random House’s trade division in Manhattan, becoming their first black woman senior editor. There, she focused on black authors and edited books by Angela Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones, and Muhammad Ali. Morrison also continued writing her own fiction at night, after her sons were asleep, and in 1970 published her first novel, The Bluest Eye.
Through all of these works Morrison has had a tremendous impact on the American and the African American literary landscapes. Her novels are widely accessible to readers and internationally praised for the quality of their prose, yet they remain dedicated to exploring nuances of African American culture and language. In Black Women Writers, a 1984 book by poet Mari Evans, Morrison states that to her the best art “is unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time,” a standard many readers believe she has met in all of her work.
Read more by Toni Morrison
Book Discussion Questions
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, we curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Beloved.
From February 18, 2026 through February 18, 2027, Ohio will celebrate the life, literature, and legacy of Toni Morrison, Lorain, Ohio native and the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison is designed and led by Literary Cleveland with Ohio Humanities, Ohioana Library Association, and the Toni Morrison Society.
The winner of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award goes to a writer who, for over the course of half a century, has painstakingly documented our racial history while the world readied itself to listen—Nell Irvin Painter.
It is certain that Nell Irvin Painter’s work has left an indelible mark on our understanding of race, race relations, and diversity. It is with great reverence that Painter joins the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards canon as the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Winner.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Nell Irvin Painter’s work.
Did you enjoy exploring Nell Irivin Painter’s work? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, Harriet Jacobs, edited by Nell Irvin Painter
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots, John Swanson Jacobs, edited by Jonathan D.S. Schroeder
Faith Ringgold: American People
The Black Woods, Amy Godine
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
August’s Selection: 2026 Poetry Winner, Death Does Not End at the Sea, by Gbenga Adesina
In Gbenga Adesina’s groundbreaking debut book of poems, a defiant and wise exploration of exile, voyages, and spiritual odysseys, we encounter figures embarking on journeys haunted by history—a son keeps dreaming he carried his dead father across the sea; a young Black father, tired of fear and breathlessness, travels with his son in search of the ghost of James Baldwin—to Paris, the south of France, Turkey, and Senegal to investigate his ancestral roots; and finally, a group of immigrants on small boats in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea sing in order not to drown, in a stunning sequence that invokes the middle passage.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Born In Flames.
Did you enjoy reading Death Does Not End at the Sea? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Ake, Wole Soyinka
Lose Your Mother, Saidiya Hartman
The Star-Apple Kingdom, Derek Walcott
The Chameleon Couch, Yusef Komunyakaa
Every Day Is for the Thief, Teju Cole
Smoking the Bible, Chris Abani
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
July’s Selection: 2026 Nonfiction Winner, Born in Flames, by Bench Ansfield
The explosive account of the arson wave that hit the Bronx and other American cities in the 1970s—and its legacy today. Ansfield’s book, based on a decade of research, introduces the term “brownlining” for the destructive insurance practices imposed on poor communities of color under the guise of racial redress.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Born In Flames.
Did you enjoy reading Born in Flames? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Race for Profit, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Freedom Dreams, Robin D.G. Kelley
South Bronx Rising, Jill Jonnes
The Limits to Capital, David Harvey
Capitalizing on Crisis, Greta R. Krippner
Zong!, M. NourbeSe Philip
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
June’s Selection: 2026 Fiction Winner, Make Your Way Home, by Carrie R. Moore
Artfully and precisely drawn, and steeped in place and history as it explores themes of belonging, inheritance, and deep intimacy, Carrie R. Moore’s debut collection announces an extraordinary new talent in American fiction, inviting us all to examine how the past shapes our present—and how our present choices will echo for years to come.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Make Your Way Home.
Did you enjoy reading Make Your Way Home? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Florida, Lauren Groff
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Deesha Philyaw
Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
May’s Selection: 2026 Memoir Winner, The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders, by Sarah Aziza
Weaving timelines, languages, geographies, and genres, The Hollow Half probes the contradictions and contingencies that create “nation” and “history.” Blazing with honesty, urgency, and poetry, this stunning debut memoir is a fearless call to imagine both the self and the world anew.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read The Hollow Half.
Did you enjoy reading The Hollow Half? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Heavy, Kiese Laymon
Birthright, George Abraham
Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings, Ghassan Kanafani
Journal of an Ordinary Grief, Mahmoud Darwish
In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Christina Sharpe
Customs, Solmaz Sharif
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
April’s Selection: 2007 Fiction Winner, Blue Front, by Martha Collins
Martha Collins’, Blue Front, the book-length poem based on a lynching her father witnessed when he was five years old in Cairo, Illinois, was also chosen as one of “25 Books to Remember from 2006” by the New York Public Library and won an Ohioana Book Award. A selection of poems from Blue Front received the Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize in 2005. The author of four previous poetry collections, including Some Things Words Can Do, Collins has also published two books of co-translations of Vietnamese poetry.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Blue Front.
Did you enjoy reading Blue Front? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
The Light of Truth, Ida B. Wells
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
The Trees, Percival Everett
Black Meme, Legacy Russell
Lynching in America Report, Equal Justice Initiative
On Whiteness, Claudia Rankine
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
The winner of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award goes to one of the most prolific poets of the 21st century, Yusef Komunyakaa. Yusef Komunyakaa’s contributions over half a century have not only shaped the literary landscape but have altered how we view the world.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Yusef Komunyakaa’s poetry.
Did you enjoy reading Yusef Komunyakaa’s work? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
February’s Selection: 2025 Poetry Winner, Yard Show, by Janice N. Harrington
As seen through the documentation of objects found within yard shows, Janice N. Harrington’s Yard Show is a collection of descriptive, lyrical, and experimental poems speaks to the Black American Imagination in all its multiplicity.
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Yard Show.
Did you enjoy reading Yard Show? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
The Warmth of Other Suns (2011 AWBA Winner), Isabel Wilkerson
Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation, Tiya Miles
Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago, Brian McCammack
Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, Brea Baker
Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens, Vaughn Sills
Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest, Terrion L. Williamson
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
January’s Selection: 2025 Memoir Winner, Feeding Ghosts, by Tessa Hulls
Tessa Hulls’ graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts, is a compendious multi-generational epic combining a sweeping history of twentieth century China with an intimate, extraordinary family story. Stories indeed – our most precious inheritance – lie at the heart of this remarkable volume: the gnawing need to tell them and the hunger to hear them.
While you read Tessa Hulls’ award-winning memoir, Feeding Ghosts, take a listen to our curated playlist of songs inspired by cowboys, travel, nomads, and more!
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Feeding Ghosts.
Did you enjoy reading Feeding Ghosts? If so, we recommend the following memoirs, graphic novels, and stories to add to your reading list!
Memorial Drive (2021 AWBA Winner), Natasha Trethewey
The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman
The Best We Could Do, Thi Bui
The Woman Warrior (1978 AWBA Winner), Maxine Hong Kingston
How to Not be Afraid of Everything, Jane Wong
The Fortunes (AWBA Winner 2017), Peter Ho Davies
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
December’s Selection: 2025 Nonfiction Winner, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots, A True Story of Slavery, A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography, John Swanson Jacobs, Edited by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder
A stunning achievement of autobiographical writing, political commentary, historical sleuthing, and critical interpretation. Originally written and published by the abolitionist and sailor John Swanson Jacobs in 1855, the memoir was rediscovered and republished by the literary scholar Jonathan Schroeder in 2024.
Book Discussion QuestionsWhether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots.
Did you enjoy reading The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots? If so, we recommend the following books to add to your reading list!
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs
David Walker’s Appeal, David Walker
We Refuse, Kellie Carter Jackson
Magnumb, Arthur Jafa
Scenes of Subjection, Saidiya Hartman
Tacky’s Revolt, Vincent Brown
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and partners each month through our Anisfield-Wolf Book Club!
Whether you are hosting your next book club or would simply like some questions to guide your reading, program director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, Kortney Morrow, has curated a selection of questions to consider while you read Colored Television.
