Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize-winning author, died earlier this month at the age of 88. She was an American novelist, essayist, book editor and college professor. Her 1977 novel Song of Solomon gained her critical acclaim and her first national literary award. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1988 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
Toni Morrison
I first discovered her writing at university, when I read Beloved for a literature class. I’ve been reading the news coverage on her the last few weeks and I’m rediscovering her work and influence. Did you know she was the first ever black woman to win the Nobel Prize? Not only that, she was a wizard at misdirection and revelation. Race and the legacy of slavery were no longer below the surface and her novels reshaped the literary landscape of the 1980s with an unprecedented honesty and intimacy (source).
Have you read any of her work?
Happy reading,
Loes M.