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Jazz (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)

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In 1987, Toni Morrison achieved a decisive plateau in her career with her fifth novel, Beloved, a Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller that solidified her position as the leading African American novelist of her generation. With Jazz, on the other hand, Morrison has dared to risk her established position by writing a novel that is less masterful and confident, more exploratory and tentative. She begins Jazz not in the rural and small-town settings that are her recognized forte, but in Harlem in the 1920’s; and she uses the novel to explore her mixed feelings about...

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