Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison passed away on Monday at the age of 88 after battling a short illness.
In his statement, Morrison’s publisher, Alfred A. Knopf said, “Morrison’s novels were celebrated and embraced by booksellers, critics, educators, readers, and librarians. Her work also ignited controversy, notably in school districts that tried to ban her books. Few American writers won more awards for their books and writing.”
The iconic author, whose birth name was Chloe Ardelia Wofford, was born in Loraine, Ohio on February 18, 1931. Morrison rose to fame shortly after the release of her first novel, ‘The Bluest Eye,’ when she was thirty-nine years old.
Published in 1970, the novel originally did not sell very well. When the City University of New York put the book on their reading list for black studies, however, its popularity began to increase. Over time, the novel became a regular on the reading list of several high schools and colleges.
In 1987, Morrison published her most acclaimed novel, ‘Beloved.’ The story was inspired by the life Margaret Garner, a woman who escaped slavery, and killed her two-year-old daughter as she was captured by hunters. In Morrison’s novel, the baby comes back to haunt her mother and family.
In 1998, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Thandie Newton starred in a film adaptation of the novel.
Morrison became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1993. She was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama in 2012.
“Toni Morrison’s prose brings us that kind of moral and emotional intensity that few writers ever attempt. She believes that language ‘arcs toward the place where meaning might lie.’ The rest of us are lucky to be following along for the ride,” Obama stated during the ceremony.
Nia Primus
