Love (2016 Edition)

Love is the eighth novel by American writer Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. Originally titled Love, it was published in 2003. The story is set in the seaside town of Silk, and its central figure is the revered resort hotel owner Bill Cosey. He is a father, a husband, a lover, a guardian, and a friend; he has been dead for years, yet still controls the desires and fates of every woman around him. His daughter-in-law May, granddaughter Christine, young late-life wife Heed, cook L, and Junior, hired to "ghostwrite" his eulogy... they are hostile, suspicious, and exhausting to one another around the same man, and also mirror one another. Through fragmented narrative and shifting points of view, the novel gradually pieces together a family feud spanning nearly half a century. The chapters, titled "Portrait," "Friend," "Stranger," "Benefactor," "Lover," "Husband," "Guardian," "Father," and "Ghost," sketch the man and the love and hate in the women's hearts from different sides. Morrison once said: "People say I always write about love... in fact, I write about betrayal. Love is the sky, betrayal is the lightning that splits the sky open so people can see." In this work, love is no longer a tender romantic promise but a complex force entangled with possession, control, jealousy, memory, and forgiveness; it asks how Black women, under the double oppression of race and gender, can love rather than hate one another, and be surrounded by love rather than imprisoned by it. The Chinese translation is by Gu Yue, whose text preserves the original's dense, poetic rhythm.