Recitatif

Twyla and Roberta first meet at eight years old, when they are placed in the same room at St. Bonaventure, a shelter for children. They stay there for four months, and in that time they become close friends. Then life pulls them apart, as it often does with childhood bonds. Years later their paths cross again, first in a diner, then in a grocery store, and later at a protest where they stand on opposite sides. Each meeting finds them at odds over something, sharp with one another and unable to agree on what really happened. Yet what they went through together as girls keeps tying them to each other, however hard they push back. Morrison wrote Recitatif in 1983, and it is the only short story she ever published. She called it an experiment: a story about two women of different races, told with every racial marker removed, even though race matters deeply to both of them. One character is white and one is Black, but the text never says which. Readers are left to work it out and to examine why they believe what they believe. The story also leaves open a question about a woman the girls tormented at the shelter, and what each of them remembers about her. This edition includes an introduction by Zadie Smith. It is a short, provocative read about what brings people together, what divides them, and how perception shapes the way we see one another.