Hogarth has unveiled the cover for Namwali Serpell’s On Morrison, a deep dive into Toni Morrison’s complete body of work set for release on January 27, 2026. The book represents something rare: a comprehensive examination of Morrison’s fiction, criticism, dramatic works, and poetry by a writer who is both an acclaimed novelist and a Harvard professor teaching Morrison’s work.

Serpell describes the project as a journey of total immersion, telling PEOPLE that she discovered new insights about Morrison, literature, and herself in the process, and she’s eager to share that experience with students and readers. “It has been such a pleasure to immerse myself totally in Morrison’s world, and such a delight to learn so many new things—about her, about literature, about myself—in the process. I cannot wait to share that pleasure and delight with more students and readers of her extraordinary work.”

The publisher frames On Morrison as an exploration of how Morrison’s artistic genius often gets overshadowed by her towering public presence as the only truly canonical Black female writer in American letters. Serpell draws on her dual experience as an award-winning author and academic to illuminate Morrison’s formal experiments, offering contextual guidance, archival discoveries, and original close readings across Morrison’s entire works.

The book aims to be both accessible and rigorous, functioning as a primer on reading one of America’s most significant authors while also teaching readers how to approach great literature more broadly. It’s positioned as a stylish, intelligent dialogue between two Black women artist-readers.

Serpell brings considerable credentials to this project. Her debut novel The Old Drift won multiple awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, while her second novel The Furrows made The New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year list. She’s received the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction and the Caine Prize for African Writing, among other honors. Early praise for On Morrison has been overwhelming, with Hanif Abdurraqib calling it a stunning reconsideration of Morrison’s legacy, Imani Perry describing it as one of the most important twenty-first-century works on the great American writer, and Kiese Laymon declaring it a literary miracle and cultural feat made perhaps once in a generation.

On Morrison is available for pre-order now from major retailers including the publisher, with publication set for January 27, 2026.