Toni Morrison, while still working as an editor at Random House, saw her second novel Sula published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1973, amidst the developing second wave of the mainstream women’s movement and the persistence of Vietnam War protests, and during the ebbing years of the Black Arts and Aesthetics Movement era in the United States. If Morrison’s Sula was not directly influenced by the environment of war and political resistance of the 1960s and 1970s, the novel was certainly informed by the social energies generated during this embattled era.
The lives of Morrison’s two main characters, Nel Wright Green and Sula Peace, along with the rich, though dying, culture of their neighbourhood, the Bottom, are the central focus of Sula. Morrison’s story of the friendship between Nel and Sula and their...
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Citation: Jimoh, A Yemisi. "Sula". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1799, accessed 08 December 2025.]
