Don't be afraid. My telling can't hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark-weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more-but I will never again ...

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel, was published in 1970. Set in Lorain, Ohio — where Morrison herself was born — the book tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old ...