Precious

The book that inspired Lee Daniels' award-winning film, produced by Oprah Winfrey and starring Gabourey Sidibe. The highly anticipated first novel by American author Sapphire—author of the poetry collection "American Dreams," critically acclaimed as one of the best literary debuts of the 1990s—"PRECIOUS" tells the story of teenager Precious Jones. At 16 and pregnant with her own father for the second time (the first was at 12), she meets a unique teacher who guides her on a journey of redemption and transformation. An intense narrative about adversity and the mechanisms for coping with it. Critically acclaimed, PRECIOUS reached number one on major bestseller lists in the United States, including the New York Times. It has been translated into more than 11 languages and spawned a film of the same name, considered a major favorite for the 2010 Oscars. Claireece Precious Jones has endured unimaginable hardships throughout her short career. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, obese, brutalized, illiterate, despised, and generally ignored. In her own dialect, she reveals herself to readers: the constant humiliations, the shattered dreams, and the resignation with which she faces her own life. In Harlem, the kingdom of the voiceless, she lives with her mother, a lonely and cruel woman who watches TV incessantly, devours all the food Precious prepares, and subjects her to her angry tirades. Despite everything, the teenager endures her mother with surprising patience and moves forward, trying to overcome the problems of everyday life with her head held high. And she dreams of a life of celebrity, covered in jewels, luxurious dresses, and a handsome boyfriend. But because of her pregnancy, she is forced to drop out of school—the last, precarious link connecting her to the rest of the world—and is invited to attend an alternative learning center. There, at the end of the line, is Miss Rain, a young, radical and hard-working teacher through whom Precious will have the possibility of recovering her voice and her dignity, discovering a new world in which she can finally understand her own feelings and express herself in a way she had never before imagined.