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Reading lists

13 essential Vintage books for Black History Month

The Kid

Abdul Jones is nine years old when his mother Precious dies. Parentless, he is sent first to a foster home and then to a Catholic orphanage. But the priests charged to care for him abuse his trust terribly. 
 
And Abdul, a victim, finds that he reacts in the most frightening way imaginable. Soon he is trapped in a dark cycle of sexual violence and betrayal. Yet through dance, in controlling his body, he discovers a way he might somehow break free and become himself . . . 
 
A harrowing and powerful novel set in New York, The Kid is a portrait of a boy forced to grow up in a cruel and callous world.

In Push Sapphire told the story of Precious Jones and in 2009 her book was adapted into the Oscar-winning film Precious. The Kid is Sapphire's heartbreaking sequel to Push. 
 
Abdul is nine years old when his mother dies. Parentless, he is sent to a foster home and then to a Catholic orphanage. But the priests charged to care for him abuse his trust terribly. 
 
Abdul reacts in the most frightening way imaginable. Soon he is trapped in a dark cycle of sexual violence and betrayal. Yet through dance, in controlling his body, he discovers a way he might somehow break free and become himself . . . 
 
A harrowing and powerful novel set in New York, The Kid is a portrait of a boy growing up in a cruel world. 
 
'Prepare to be harrowed; I was sobbing by the end of the first chapter . . . Sapphire writes with a burning anger that gives this novel an explosive power' The Times 
 
'Hardcore. Brave, bold, uncompromising. The breathtaking velocity and visceral power of Sapphire's prose soars off the page' Observer 
 
'Captures the gruelling heartbreak of trying to love anything when the world doesn't love you enough' New York Herald Tribune 
 
'A dark and punishing tale' Big Issue 
 
'A fearless writer and thinker of enormous talent, insight and skill. Abdul's story is frighteningly realistic. A consummate work of art, style and brains. Full of the energy of pain, rage, grief and doubt' List 
 
'Devastating. An accomplished work of art . . . hard to forget' Los Angeles Times 
 
'Urgent, troubling, harrowing, masterfully narrated, powerful' Diva 
 
Sapphire is the author of two poetry collections, Black Wings and Blind Angels and American Dreams and the bestselling novel Push. The film adaptation of her novel, Precious, received the Academy Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress - for actor Mo'Nique - in addition to the Grand Jury Prize and Audience awards in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance. In 2009 she was a recipient of a United States Artist Fellowship. She lives in New York City.

Captures the gruelling heartbreak of trying to love anything when the world doesn't love you enough

Prepare to be harrowed; I was sobbing by the end of the first chapter . . . [Sapphire] writes with a burning anger that gives this novel an explosive power

Sapphire is not your average writer. Brave, bold and uncompromising . . . The breathtaking velocity and visceral power of her prose soars off the page . . . The novel keeps you on tenterhooks

Explicit and damning in its depiction of a forgotten underclass . . . Stunning . . . Exhilarating

Harrowing . . . Masterfully narrated . . . Powerful

Abdul's story is frighteningly realistic . . . The novel itself is a consummate work of art, style and brains, shining at times with the possibility for hope and joy . . . More accomplished than [Push] and a thousand times more frightening

Sapphire is the author of two collections of poetry and the bestselling novel Push. The film adaption of her novel, Precious (2009), received the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress, in addition to the Grand Jury Prize and Audience awards in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance. In 2009 she was a recipient of a United States Artist Fellowship. She lives in New York City.

Sapphire

'I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning.' 
 
This is the story of Precious, a sixteen-year-old illiterate Black girl who has never been out of Harlem. Pregnant by her own father for the second time, she is kicked out of school and placed in an alternative teaching programme. Through learning to read and write, Precious begins to find her voice, and fight back. 
 
Push is the unflinching diary of a girl whose strength and kindness shines amidst extraordinary adversity. 
 
Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, featuring bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.

Sapphire

Push

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