Lobbying the reader: Toni Morrison’s recent forewords to her novels

This article examines the eight forewords, written by Morrison herself, that accompany all the recent Vintage editions of the novels except A Mercy (2008) and Home (2012). It reads them as a significant yet little-discussed contribution to her corpus of non-fiction work. Examining how the forewords came about and their apparent purpose, I collate the new perspectives they provide on Morrison’s narrative project, the insights they contain about American/transnational historical, political and literary cultures and the glimpses into the novelist’s life story they afford. I focus on what might be lost through their existence rather than what might be gained. I analyze in detail the ways in which Morrison’s foregrounded summaries of her central concerns diminish the reader’s active and participatory role. Making connections and comparisons with her published essays and interviews, I argue that the forewords undermine both the authority of the reader and the sense of a collaborative project which Morrison had until now invested with such political importance. Resisting the hagiographic tendency of some Morrison criticism, I explore the potentially problematic conflicts and inconsistencies about audience and reception; about definitive and ‘indefinitive’ editions; and about the empowerment or disempowerment of the reader; that the appearance of these prefatory essays has engendered.