NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER ? A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Nobel Prize winner -- for the first time in a beautifully produced stand-alone edition, with an introduction by Zadie Smith

"A puzzle of a story, then -- a game... When [Morrison] called Recitatif an 'experiment' she meant it. The subject of the experiment is the reader." -- Zadie Smith, award-winning, best-selling author of White Teeth

In this 1983 short story -- the only short story Morrison ever wrote -- we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.

Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." We know that one is white and one is Black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?

A remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and how perceptions are made tangible by reality, Recitatif is a gift to readers in these changing times.

• We started tracking this book on April 5, 2021.
• This book was $9.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 42 times in the past 1,400 days.
• The current price of this book is $4.99 last checked 2 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was $4.99 last reached on February 2, 2025.
• This book has been $4.99 6 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $10.99 last reached on December 10, 2023.
• This book has been $10.99 3 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Literature & Fiction

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 81 Pages
• File Size: 5,564 KB