Available at:

PUSH

NOW THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

PRECIOUS

SAPPHIRE

An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world begins to open up for her when a courageous, determined teacher bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary.

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire has just been nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Check out the trailer!

Reviews:

"Affecting and impassioned. . . . Sails on the strength of pure, stirring feeling."

—The New York Times Book Review

"A horrific, hope-filled story [that is] brilliant, blunt, merciless."

—Newsday

"Brutal, redemptive. . . . You just can't take your eyes off Precious Jones."

—Newsweek

"A fascinating novel that may well find a place in the African-American literary canon. . . . With a fresh new voice that echoes the streets, Sapphire's work is sure to win as many hearts as it disturbs minds."

—Philadelphia Inquirer

"You feel you've witnessed nothing less than the birth of a soul."

—Entertainment Weekly

"A stunningly frank effort that marks the emergence of an immensely promising writer."

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Precious's story, told through her own unique style and spelling, is a major achievement. It documents a remarkable resilience of spirit."

—Boston Globe

About the Author:

Sapphire is the author of American Dreams, a collection of poetry which was cited by Publishers Weekly as, "One of the strongest debut collections of the nineties." Push, her novel, won the Book-of-the-Month Club 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. Push was 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. About her most recent book of poetry Poet's and Writer's Magazine wrote, "With her soul on the line in each verse, her latest collection, Black Wings & Blind Angels, retains Sapphire's incendiary power to win hearts and singe minds."

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. In February of 2007 Arizona State University presented PUSHing Boundaries, PUSHing Art: A Symposium on the Works of Sapphire. Sapphire's work has been translated into eleven languages and has been adapted for stage in the United States and Europe. Precious, the film adaption of her novel, recently won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Awards in the U.S. dramatic competition at Sundance (2009).

Sapphire chats with Katie Couric