At once the ideal introduction to the legendary Nobel Prize winner and a lovely and moving keepsake for her devoted readers: a treasury of quotations from her work. • With a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Zadie Smith. "She was our conscience. Our seer. Our truthteller." —Oprah Winfrey This inspirational book juxtaposes quotations, one to a page, drawn from Toni Morrison's entire body of work, both fiction and nonfiction—from The Bluest Eye to God Help the Child, from Playing in the Dark to The Source of Self-Regard—to tell a story of self-actualization. It aims to evoke the totality of Toni Morrison's literary vision. Its compelling sequence of flashes of revelation—stunning for their linguistic originality, keenness of psychological observation, and philosophical profundity—addresses issues of abiding interest in Morrison's work: the reach of language for the ineffable; transcendence through imagination; the self and its discontents; the vicissitudes of love; the whirligig of memory; the singular power of women; the original American sin of slavery; the bankruptcy of racial oppression; the complex humanity and art of black people. The Measure of Our Lives brims with elegance of style and mind and moral authority.

トニ・モリスンが遺した言葉は、文学の枠を超えた人類の良心です。本書は彼女の全生涯にわたる思考を凝縮した、魂の羅針盤と言える一冊。奴隷制の傷痕から自己愛の深淵まで、言語化し得ない感情をすくい取る筆致は、暗闇を貫く閃光のように私たちの意識を照らします。 一頁ごとの断章は、フィクションと論考が響き合う深遠な魂の記録です。その心理的鋭敏さと哲学的な深みは、読者の胸を激しく揺さぶり、自己を再発見する勇気を与えてくれます。ノーベル賞作家の壮大なビジョンを凝縮して浴びる、これほど贅沢で熱い読書体験は他にありません。