Beloved

Toni Morrison's spiritual and haunting novel Beloved, published in 1987, tells the story of an escaped slave named Sethe who flees to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1873. Sethe's guilt and emotional pain after killing her own child, whom she named Beloved, to keep her from living life as a slave are depicted in the novel, which investigates the trauma of slavery even after freedom has been gained. A spectral figure with the same name as the child appears in the lives of the characters, embodying the family's anguish and hardship and making their feelings and past unavoidable.

The novel received praise for addressing the psychological effects of slavery as well as the importance of family and community in healing. In 1988, Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Link to read: goodreads.com/book/show/6149.Beloved