Beloved cover art

Beloved

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Beloved

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.

This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

Click here to see all the titles in our Radio & TV Book Clubs collection.©1987 Toni Morrison (P)1998 Random House, Inc. African American Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Haunted Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Invisible Man cover art
In Cold Blood cover art
Sula cover art
Rush Home Road cover art
Nowhere is a Place cover art
Jazz cover art
The Color Purple cover art
Their Eyes Were Watching God cover art
The Poisonwood Bible cover art
The Freedom Maze cover art
Tar Baby cover art
If the Creek Don't Rise cover art
The Sound and the Fury cover art
Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh cover art
The Plague of Doves cover art
The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis cover art

Critic reviews

"Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature." ( New York Review of Books)
"A masterwork....Wonderful....I can't imagine American literature without it." ( Los Angeles Times)
All stars
Most relevant  
An amazing book. Can't recommend it more. A must have for any library. Honest and moving.

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I’m glad it was read by the author, and she did a great job, she has a soothing voice. The story is quite traumatic but then slavery was traumatic. The language was very poetic and sometimes I found it hard to work out what was actually happening, and had to listen again. But overall a great book

Gritty story about effect of slavery on one woman

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sometimes fiction can be the best way of treating reality, and this groundbreaking novel is surely a prime example of that. It explains the reality of slavery in a way which none of the first hand accounts such as Douglass, Jacobs, Equiano, Prince can do. It speaks of the depths of the human experience of those directly affected and the scars that are left both on the outside and the inside. The narrative voice is unfamiliar and takes some getting used to. Toni Morrison's expressive but understated delivery is perfect for her novel of characters who "remember as little as they dare" but gradually let their stories out despite themselves.

Unbearably moving

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully read and a poignant story that captivates you from the start. Thoroughly recommend this book.

Mesmerising

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
wonderful, awful, confusing, revealing. terrifying and subtle, angry and healing. Shaming and redemptive. It is simply a story carved from some magical substance.

I've read this and now I've heard it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
great psychological ghost story, highlighting the trauma that slave women went through when their children (often begotten by rape) were sold or mistreated. Not a light read. Beautifully narrated by the author.

Ghost Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this book has imploded inside me, worth every second of my time, Toni is magnificent

you live in this book at times catching your beath

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A live story wrapped in tragedy. Steel yourself. It will be worth it. Toni Morrison at her best. A true master.

Hauntingly beautiful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

If you could sum up Beloved in three words, what would they be?

Excuisite and wrenching.

What did you like best about this story?

The narative pulls you along to meet these complex characters.

What about Toni Morrison’s performance did you like?

Her voice is beautiful and authentic, i felt like i was sitting listening to a great friend.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

We are forever changed.

Sitting with a great friend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully narrated and written. A harrowing tale exploring the impact of slavery. A must read.

Read by the author

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews