❝If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.❞
-- Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, Love and A Mercy. Her novels are known for their epic themes, exquisite language and richly detailed African American characters who are central to their narratives. Morrison earned an great book-world accolades and honorary degrees, also receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison was the second oldest of four children. Morrison later credited her parents with encouraging and planting in her a love of reading, music and folklore along with clarity and perspective.
Living in an integrated neighborhood, Morrison did not become fully aware of racial divisions until she was in her teens. Dedicated to her studies, Morrison took Latin in school and ready many great works of European Literature. She graduated from Lorain High School with honors in 1949. At Howard University, she continued to pursue her interest in literature. Morrison majored in English and chose the classics for her minor. After graduating from Howard in 1953, she continued her education at Cornell University. There she wrote a thesis on the works of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner and completed her masters in 1955.
In 1957, Morrison went back to Howard University to teach. During that year, she met Harold Morrison and got married in 1958. Her first child, Harold was born in 1961. Morrison joined a writers group that met on campus where she began working on her first novel with the group, which started out as a short story.
In 1965, she moved to Syracuse, New York with her two sons where she worked for a textbook publisher as a senior editor. Later on she worked for Random House, where she edited works by Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones. Morrison's first novel was The Bluest Eye published in 1970. The book follows a young African American girl, Pecola Breedlove who believes her incredibly difficult life would be better if only she had blue eyes.
Morrison's next novel Sula (1973) explores good and evil through the friendship of two women who grew up together in Ohio. Sula was nominated for the American Book Award. Her addition works: Song of Solomon (1977), first work by an African American author to be a featured selection in the Book of the Month club since Native Son by Richard Wright, Tar Baby (1981) a Caribbean-based novel, Beloved (1987) explores love and supernatural. Morrison won several literary awards including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
She published additional works of fiction, non-fiction, and children's books. Morrison passed away on August 5, 2019 at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.
Discussion Questions:
Which novel, novella, or work have you read by Toni Morrison?
Toni Morrison's quote earlier in this discussion chapter, what is the book that you want to read and you must write it?
What themes are woven throughout her novels? Are their similarities? Are their differences in the themes?
Always open to additional questions and comments on about Toni Morrison and her works.
If there is another author you would like to see a discussion on, please post your suggestion in the comments below for a chance to be featured in a future chapter!
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