Toni Morrison’s Jazz, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992, is the sixth of her ten novels to date and, some scholars believe, is the second in her series on love. Arguably, among her most experimental novels, Morrison’s musically titled book is not focused primarily on music or musicians but rather on the places and the lived reality of the people that made jazz possible. Morrison combines a focus on the context out of which the music developed with her own inventive jazz style in writing. Jazz is structured as an ensemble of improvisational riffs, voiced by several narrative speakers that Morrison imbues with innovative styles that are sometimes unmistakably distinct from each other and at other times are not so easily distinguished. Although Jazz is an ensemble production of
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Citation: Jimoh, A Yemisi. "Jazz". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2003; last revised 20 March 2012. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4359, accessed 22 November 2024.]
