A World of Difference : An Inter-Cultural Study of Toni Morrison's Novels

Throughout her novels, Toni Morrison explores the complex interaction of race, class, culture, and gender. This study takes into account both Western and Black traditions to show how Morrison not only denounces the constricting patterns of the dominant culture, but also, through the reversal or subversion of Western stereotypes, harnesses the rich potential for the significance they contain.

While most recent studies of Morrison examine individual works separately, this book concentrates on particular dimensions of Morrison's fiction and explores the continuities and developments from her first to most recent novel. And while other studies generally approach Morrison from a particular critical perspective, this book instead considers the interaction of multiple determinants such as race and gender, and gives special attention to the pressure exerted by dominant cultural forms. The authors demonstrate how in contradiction to the dominant culture's ideology of unity and homogeneity, Morrison makes a case for the value of difference in a diverse society.

WENDY HARDING is Maitre de Conferences at the Universite Paul Valery in France. In addition to her work on contemporary novelists, she is an authority on medieval literature and feminist interpretation.

JACKY MARTIN is Professor of English at the Universite Paul Valery in France. He has published extensively on Toni Morrison and has done considerable research on the theory of translation and discourse analysis.