100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Thanks for supporting our 100% NZ-owned independent bookstore ❀️ Overnight NZ-wide Delivery πŸš€

Recitatif

By Toni Morrison
Series: Brief Encounters
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
Experience a brief encounter with Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison in this masterful novella about race, ambiguity, and the unexpected connections that shape our lives. A stunning, timeless story about race, friendship, what keeps us apart and what drives us apart, from the one and only... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2400
Pre-order
Releases 20th October 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Recitatif" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Experience a brief encounter with Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison in this masterful novella about race, ambiguity, and the unexpected connections that shape our lives.

A stunning, timeless story about race, friendship, what keeps us apart and what drives us apart, from the one and only Toni Morrison, with an introduction by Zadie Smith.

Twyla and Roberta met in a girls' shelter as children. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only to meet again later at a diner, a grocery store, and then on opposing sides of a protest. The two women are seemingly at opposite ends of every issue, but the persistence of their bond is undeniable.

Brief Encounters: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.

Series: Brief Encounters

View all
  • A Gentle Spirit & A Faint Heart
    Pre-order
    A Gentle Spirit & A Faint Heart
    Experience a brief encounter with Fyodor Dostoevsky, titan of Russian literature, in these two searing novellas of love, despair, and the weight of the human soul. Two of Dostoevsky's most powerful novellas of obsession, cruelty, and the fragility of the heart. A pawnbroker paces beside his young wife's body, attempting to piece together the circumstances that led to her suicide....
    By Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • An Undesirable Friend
    Pre-order
    An Undesirable Friend
    Enjoy a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Natsume Soseki, Japan's greatest modern novelist, in this sly, comic tale of cats, humans, and the absurdities of friendship. From Japan's most famous, classic novelist comes a remarkable gem of wit, irony, and feline observation. A stray kitten, catapulted to literary fame, loudly observes the world of Meiji Japan in all its absurdity. But he's...
    By Natsume Soseki
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • A Parish Chronicle
    Pre-order
    A Parish Chronicle
    Experience a brief encounter with HalldΓ³r Laxness, the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author, in this rich, rustic and charming novel. An intimate, magical novel about one enduring church in a rural Icelandic valleyβ€”an ode to a quiet way of life now lost to time forever. The resting place of the legendary Viking warrior Egil Skallagrimsson's skull, Mosfell Church is a lonely,...
    By HalldΓ³r Laxness
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Ape and Essence
    Pre-order
    Ape and Essence
    Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Aldous Huxley, the visionary author, in his dystopian satire. Huxley's dystopian classic is a nightmare vision of the fate of humanity in a post-nuclear world. After a devastating global catastrophe, a group of scientists arrives in a ruined future shaped by fear, ritual, and violence. Humanity has survivedβ€”but at a terrible cost, and not in...
    By Aldous Huxley
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • A Souvenir of Japan
    Pre-order
    A Souvenir of Japan
    Embark on a brief encounter with Angela Carter, weird fiction's most influential pioneer, and her transformative stories of finding oneself in the face of another world. Five stories of desire and discovery set in 1970s Japan, from weird fiction's most influential pioneer - Angela Carter. An Englishwoman muses on her affair with a younger Japanese man. A spurned lover seeks...
    By Angela Carter
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Bartleby, The Scrivener
    Pre-order
    Bartleby, The Scrivener
    Enjoy a brief encounter with Herman Melville, the great, epic storyteller of Modern America, and his enduring tale of a man who takes refusing to conform to its extreme limits. Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to its extreme. A new clerk in a Wall Street lawyer's office causes dismay and confusion...
    By Herman Melville
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Behind a Mask
    Pre-order
    Behind a Mask
    Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Louisa May Alcott, beloved chronicler of girlhood, in this surprisingly dark, subversive novella of deception and desire. This is Alcott as you have never seen her before – gothic, and gloriously unsettling. A young governess arrives at a grand country house and quickly wins the confidence of its family. Humble and modest, Jean Muir seems...
    By Louisa May Alcott
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Bewitched
    Pre-order
    Bewitched
    Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Edith Wharton, grande dame of American letters, in these spectral tales of longing, loss, and the uncanny. Edith Wharton's ghost stories whisper of passion, exile, and the things we cannot forget. In an old Dorset house, a couple settle into a life of quiet comfort β€” until a presence makes itself felt. At a country...
    By Edith Wharton
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Cain
    Pre-order
    Cain
    Experience a brief encounter with JosΓ© Saramago, the Nobel Prize-winning author, in his provocative and philosophical retelling of the biblical story of Cain. Written in the last years of Saramago's life, Cain is a controversial and witty story of a wilful, authoritarian God. After killing his brother, Cain is condemned to wander the earth. As he moves through time, he...
    By JosΓ© Saramago
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
    Pre-order
    Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
    A trail-blazing, transportive novella that contains all the energy, history and charm of one man's lifetime, this is Bohumil Hrabal's most unique masterpiece. This ebullient, gallivanting novella encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic's best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. An ageing man holds court, spinning a single, unbroken stream of stories about his lifeβ€”loves won and lost,...
    By Bohumil Hrabal
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Distant Star
    Pre-order
    Distant Star
    Enjoy a brief encounter with Roberto BolaΓ±o, the 21st century's first, great classic author, and his novella Distant Starβ€”a dark, haunting, yet delightfully magical story of two poets outplaying one another in a sinister endgame of cat-and-mouse. A dazzling, daring tale of poets at the end of the world, Distant Star is Roberto BolaΓ±o's miniature dystopian masterpiece. Alberto Ruiz-Tagle was...
    By Roberto BolaΓ±o
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026
  • Down by the Riverside
    Pre-order
    Down by the Riverside
    Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Richard Wright, trailblazing voice of African American literature, in this devastating story of survival, love and betrayal during a Southern flood. A flood brings not only rising waters but the full force of a brutal, racist world. With the Mississippi flooding, a Black farmer struggles to get his pregnant wife to safety. In the chaos,...
    By Richard Wright
    Paperback
    $2400
    Pre-order
    Out 20 Oct 2026

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529983586

Publisher: Vintage Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 02 July 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Vintage Classics

Contributors:

  • Introduction by Zadie Smith

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 8.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 86g

Pages: 96

Collections

Education & Reference Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Penguin Books Pre-order Books Pre-order General Fiction Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date Series: Brief Encounters Toni Morrison

About the Author

Toni Morrison (Author) Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She was the author of many novels, including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, Paradise and Love. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honour, in 2012 by Barack Obama. Toni Morrison died on 5 August 2019 at the age of eighty-eight. Zadie Smith (Introducer) Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time and The Fraud; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; four collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free, Intimations and Dead and Alive; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.

Also by Toni Morrison

View all
  • Beloved
    Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison is one of the finest novelists of our times. Discover Toni Morrison's most iconic work in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that exemplifies her powerful and important place in contemporary American literature. 'An American masterpiece' - AS Byatt It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Beloved
    A haunting yet beautiful story that moves the reader from start to finish. INCLUDES A READING GUIDE Terrible, unspeakable things happened to Sethe at Sweet Home, the farm where she lived as a slave for so many years until she escaped to Ohio. Her new life is full of hope, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe's...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Bluest Eye
    Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison is one of the finest novelists of our times. Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Backorder
    Ships mid September
  • Sula
    A captivating novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved Extravagantly beautiful... Enormously, achingly alive... A howl of love and rage, playful and funny as well as hard and bitter – New York Times As young girls, Nel and Sula shared each other's secrets and dreams in the poor black mid-West of their childhood. Then Sula ran away to live...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Sula
    Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison is one of the finest novelists of our times. Extravagantly beautiful... Enormously, achingly alive... A howl of love and rage, playful and funny as well as hard and bitter - New York Times As young girls, Nel and Sula shared each other's secrets and dreams in the poor black mid-West of their childhood....
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $2899
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Recitatif
    A stunning, relevant short story (the only one Toni Morrison wrote) about race and the relationships that shape our lives, with a new substantial introduction from Zadie Smith. 'Toni Morrison was the lodestar who inspired us' – Bernadine Evaristo Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old, when they were thrown together as roommates in...
    By Toni Morrison
    Hardback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Book of Mean People (20th Anniversary Edition)
    A new edition for a new world of one of literary legend Toni Morrison s first picture books with her son, Slade Morrison. With an afterword by the inimitable Jewell Parker Rhodes."This is a book about mean people. Some mean people are big. Some little people are mean." In Toni Morrison's second illustrated book collaboration with her son Slade, she...
    By Toni Morrison and Slade Morrison
    Hardback
    $5300
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • Tar Baby
    The unforgettable novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved. Into a white millionaire's Caribbean mansion comes Jadine. Then there's Son. Jadine is sophisticated, beautiful, a black American graduate of the Sorbonne. Son is a black fugitive from small-town Florida who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, she charts all the nuances of obligation and...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Bluest Eye
    The first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. Unloved, unseen, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes. In this way she dreams of becoming beautiful, of becoming someoneβ€”like her white...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Song of Solomon
    Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison is one of the finest novelists of our times. Lured South by tales of buried treasure, Milkman embarks on an odyssey back home. As a boy, Milkman was raised beneath the shadow of a status-obsessed father. As a man, he trails in the fiery wake of a friend bent on racial revenge. Now...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Song of Solomon
    Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison is one of the finest novelists of our times. Song of Solomon...profoundly changed my life' - Marlon James Macon 'Milkman' Dead was born shortly after a neighbourhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life, he too will be trying to fly. In...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Paradise
    Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison, is one of the finest novelists of our times. Four young women are brutally attacked near an all-black town in rural Oklahoma. The inevitability of this attack, and the attempts to avert it, lie at the heart of Paradise. Spanning the birth of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, and the counter-culture of the...
    By Toni Morrison
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

More from General Fiction

View all
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people β€” but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    By Alison Espach
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Throne of Glass Box Set (Paperback)
    Enter the realm. Unleash the darkness. Live the legend. Discover the worldwide phenomenon of the #1 New York Times-bestselling Throne of Glass series in this gorgeous 8-book box set! In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass, but she has not...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Set
    $12400
    Elsewhere:
    $15500
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Goal
    Welcome to Briar U!Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy!Read The Goal now for the perfect forced proximity romance! She's good at achieving her goals . . . College senior Sabrina James has her whole future planned out: graduate from college, kick...
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Red Rising
    The first book in the incredible New York Times bestselling series Darrow is a Helldiver, toiling beneath the surface of Mars. As a member of the Red caste, he performs grueling labor in the belief that his sacrifice will enable future generations to one day inhabit the surface of the Red Planet. The Reds are humankind's lowest caste, living in...
    By Pierce Brown
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Score
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession... Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Score now for the perfect friends with benefits romance! He knows how to score, on and off the ice... Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn't have...
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Ballad of Falling Dragons [Special Deluxe edition]
    The No.1 Sunday Times bestselling sensation When the Moon Hatched continues with the second book in The Moonfall Series, The Ballad of Falling Dragons… Raeve’s thirst for vengeance continues to burn, as does her love for Kaan Vaegor – a staunch beacon from a past she’s yet to face. With Rekk’s blood still fresh on her hands, she learns the...
    By Sarah A. Parker
    Hardback
    $5999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Dylan's Pick Dylan's Pick
    Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    By Allen Levi
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (5)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Lizzy's Pick Lizzy's Pick
    Yesteryear
    A BOLD AND BITING SATIRE. WILL HAVE YOU GASPING TO THE FINAL PAGE β€” Nita Prose WICKEDLY FUNNY, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND FRIGHTENINGLY PERCEPTIVE β€” Abigail Dean INVENTIVE, ADDICTIVE, A WILD RIDE β€” Ashley Audrain SHOT THROUGH WITH HUMOUR AND LACED WITH DARKNESS β€” Clare Mackintosh The Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid's Tale β€” Hannah Deitch My name was Natalie Heller...
    By Caro Claire Burke
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Golden Son
    ENDER'S GAME meets THE HUNGER GAMES in this, the second in an extraordinary trilogy from an incredible new voice.'I'm still playing games. This is just the deadliest yet.' Darrow is a rebel forged by tragedy. For years he and his fellow Reds worked the mines, toiling to make the surface of Mars inhabitable. They were, they believed, mankind's last hope....
    By Pierce Brown
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Voracious
    From USA Today bestselling author and TikTok sensation comes the gripping, steamy dark romance series that everyone is talking about!'Filled with TENSION, HEARTBREAK and ELECTRIC CHEMISTRY. This one will tear your heart right out of your chest before tossing it back in and sewing you up' No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Brynne Weaver'Leigh Rivers is THE QUEEN OF...
    By Leigh Rivers
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Mistake
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Mistake now for the perfect second chance romance! He's a player in more ways than one . . . College junior John Logan can get any girl he wants....
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Project Hail Mary
    Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of The Martian, offers a gripping new adventure in hard science fiction. With endorsement from notable figures such as Barack Obama and a slew of five-star reviews, this novel promises a thrilling and intellectually stimulating journey. Ryland Grace, a lone astronaut, finds himself on a...
    By Andy Weir
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

General Fiction lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all