Beloved was the 1988 Pulitzer-winning novel written by Toni Morrison.
Published in 1987, Beloved is set after the American Civil War and follows Sethe, an formerly enslaved woman living in Cincinnati with her daughter Denver. The novel's haunting is connected to Sethe's traumatic past and to the history of slavery.
Morrison drew inspiration from the story of Margaret Garner, an enslaved woman who escaped to Ohio in 1856. The novel does not simply retell Garner's life; it transforms the historical material into a complex exploration of memory, motherhood, identity, and communal healing.
Beloved is often discussed alongside Morrison's other novels, including Sula, Song of Solomon, Jazz, and Paradise. It later became a major work of American literature and was adapted into a 1998 film.