In the heart of the Americas, two little black girls invent another life for themselves, richer, funnier, freer especially than the harsh reality that surrounds them. As they get older, Sula the rebel goes to roll around the big cities while Nel, the wise one, fulfills her vocation as a mother and wife. Forty years later, they take stock, oppose each other and each embody in their own way the fierce energy of the black woman in the face of such vulnerable men. Toni Morrison, already Pulitzer Prize winner in 1988 for Beloved (10/18, n° 2378), received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for her entire book