It is a wonderful book on every level, not just the writing, or the story, or the tremendous creation of Precious - antithesis of a heroine, a 250lb girl who describes herself as too dark and ugly, and whose taste in clothes is appalling (but hopeful, fluorescent yellow leggings and a leather jacket) but also the ending.

In other words, the racism is not at all deep-seated, it's something that can easily be changed for the better.

Lack of experience and gossip being the main vehicles for knowledge rather than books and education. The racism and other prejudices are that of poverty. It's very much a diatribe against an America that so many blacks feel they had no place in forming and no place within as a right. How no one cares about those who fall through the cracks so long as they do it quietly.

The story is really of how the system has failed those at the very bottom of society. The literary device of the writing changing, opening, blooming along with the story is remarkably well-executed. It isn't, as most good writing is, just a vehicle to convey the material as much as a vibrant and necessary component of the story. The writing in the book is a joy to read. (Not that I don't quite enjoy urban fiction, Zane is quite good and very spicy). More urban fiction: ghetto girl's acrylics scratch eyes out of baby father's new crack-addicted girlfriend, I thought. I didn't put much faith in an author named 'Sapphire'. I'm aware it's the same book, but why change my edition?ĥ stars for creating a really unique heroineĥ stars for an enjoyable, engrossing storyħ stars for beautiful use of language (yeah mutherfuckers, sometimes that word is the only word that fits) Sapphire’s work has been translated into over a dozen languages and has been adapted for stage in the United States and Europe. Sapphire's poetry has appeared in the following anthologies: Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Grabbed: Poets & Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing, and New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent.

In February of 2007 Arizona State University presented PUSHing Boundaries, PUSHing Art: A Symposium on the Works of Sapphire. Sapphire’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Spin, and Bomb. Push was adapted into the Oscar winning film, Precious. Named by the Village Voice and Time Out New York as one of the top ten books of 1996, Push was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction. Push: A novel, won the Book-of-the-Month Club’s Stephen Crane award for First Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s First Novelist Award, and in Great Britain, the Mind Book of the Year Award. Sapphire is the author of Push, American Dreams, The Kid, and Black Wings & Blind Angels.

Push book precious