Push
Sapphire • 1996
Devastation Rating
poverty trauma literary fiction injustice survival
Our Take
Precious Jones is sixteen, illiterate, pregnant by her father for the second time, and she is not broken. Sapphire writes in Precious's own voice — imperfect, searching, alive — and the novel's refusal to pity her is its most radical gesture. A portrait of institutional failure so specific it becomes an accusation.
Appears In
► Poverty in Fiction — Stories From the Margins ► The Great Depression — When the Economy Becomes a Catastrophe ► Trafficking and Exploitation — The Bodies the System Discards ► Foster Care — The State as Parent ► Homelessness and Poverty — What the Margins Look Like From Inside ► Famine and Hunger — The Politics of Who Eats
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