Toni Morrison

by Debra

"Toni Morrison? Who's he?" I remember thinking, as I pulled the book "Song of Solomon" off the college bookstore shelf. The book was required reading for my English 1A class. I saw on its cover that it had won the National Book Critics' Award in 1977, but I still didn't know this guy from Adam.

Ms. Morrison's book turned out to be a revelation waiting to happen. This transcendent story presents an African American vision of community, self-acceptance, and redemption so powerful, it soars right over the "culture barrier" and speaks to us all. Since that English class, I've gone through Toni Morrison's books like a brushfire through a forest, and loved every one of them. I think "Beloved" may be the finest of her many fine efforts---I was very deeply moved by the tale of choices a loving mother must make for her children when all of the choices are heartbreaking. But "Song of Solomon" remains, to this day (more than 10 years after I first read it), one of my favorite and most happily re-read books.

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, in 1931. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Howard University in 1953, and her Masters from Cornell, in 1955. She is the mother of two children. Currently, she's Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University.

Her first book, "The Bluest Eye," was published in 1969. Beginning with the publication of her second book, "Sula," right through her latest, "Paradise," Toni Morrison's inimitable storytelling finesse has reaped international recognition and a multitude of awards, including the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and, in 1993, the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Toni is a member of numerous arts and humanities organizations. She's a trustee of the National Humanities Center, and a very active member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Council on the Arts, the Authors Guild (member of council), and the Authors League of America.

A quote from Toni Morrison:

"I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.... My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger."

(Because you are a black female writer, you made my world a bigger place too. Thank you, Toni.)