

Race matters Black matter(s) Unspeakable things unspoken: the Afro-American presence in American literature Academic whispers Gertrude Stein and the difference she makes Hard, true, and lasting The dead of September 11 The foreigner's home Racism and fascism Home Wartalk The war on error A race in mind: the press in deed Moral inhabitants The price of wealth, the cost of care The habit of art The individual artist Arts advocacy Sarah Lawrence commencement address The slavebody and the blackbody Harlem on my mind: contesting memory-meditation on museums, culture, and integration Women, race, and memory Literature and public life The Nobel lecture in literature Cinderella's stepsisters The future of time: literature and diminished expectations

In all, The Source of Self-Regard is a luminous and essential addition to Toni Morrison's oeuvre."-Dust jacket And here too is piercing commentary on her own work (including The Bluest Eye, Sala, Tar Baby, Jazz, Beloved, and Paradise) and that of others, among them painter and collagist Romare Bearden, author Toni Cade Bambara, and theater director Peter Sellars. She looks at enduring aspects of culture: the role of the artist in society, the literary imagination, the Afro-American presence in American literature, and, in her Nobel lecture, the power of language itself. In the writings and speeches included here, Morrison takes on contested social issues: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, "black matter(s) and human rights. It is divided into three parts: the first is introduced by a powerful prayer for the dead of 9/11, the second by a searching meditation on Martin Luther King Ir., and the last by a heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. The Source of Self-Regard is brimming with all the elegance of mind and style, the literary prowess and moral compass, that are Toni Morrison's hallmarks. Summary "One of the most celebrated and revered writers in the history of American literature gives us a new nonfiction collection-a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.
