The classic, Pulitzer-Prize winning novel that made Alice Walker a household name.

Written at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule, this work analyses the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. Showing how decolonization must be combined with building a national culture, it presents analysis of relations between the West and the Third World.

Terrible, unspeakable things happened to Sethe at Sweet Home, the farm where she lived as a slave for many years until she escaped to Ohio. Her new life is full of hope but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

This is the story of Macon Milkman Dead, heir to the richest black family in a Midwestern town, as he makes a voyage of rediscovery, travelling southwards geographically and inwards spiritually. Through the enlightenment of one man, the novel recapitulates the history of slavery and liberation.

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, this work explores with humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties.