Recitatif: Toni Morrison

In this 1983 short story – the only short story Morrison ever wrote – we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other’s throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them. Another work of genius by this masterful writer, ‘Recitatif’ keeps Twyla’s and Roberta’s races ambiguous throughout the story.