Profile of Toni Morrison on Famous Like Me

Toni Morrison (born February 18, 1931) is one of the most prominent authors in world literature, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Through her writings and other works, Morrison was also instrumental in bringing recognition to the genre of African American literature. Several of her novels are included among the canon of American literature, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), and Song of Solomon. Her writings are known for dealing with epic themes, for Morrison's writing of dialogue, and for her detailed depictions of African Americans. Beloved was released in 1998 as the film Beloved starring Oprah Winfrey

In recent years, Morrison has published a number of children's books with her son, Slade Morrison.

Morrison's early years

Morrison was born as Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Morrison was the second of four children in a working-class African American family. As a child Morrison read constantly (among her favorite authors were Jane Austen and Tolstoy). Morrison's father, George Wofford, a welder by trade, told her numerous folktales of the black community (a method of storytelling that would later work its way into Morrison's writings).

In 1949 Morrison entered Howard University to study humanities. While there she changed her name from "Chloe" to "Toni," explaining that people found "Chloe" too difficult to pronounce. Morrison received a B.A. in English from Howard in 1953, then earned a Master of Arts degree from Cornell University in 1955.

Promoting black literature

After graduation, Morrison became an English instructor at Texas Southern University in Houston (from 1955-57) then returned to Howard to teach English. In 1964 she moved to Syracuse, New York, where she worked as a textbook editor. Eighteen months later she went to work as an editor at the New York City headquarters of Random House.

As an editor Morrison played an important role in bringing African American literature into the mainstream. She edited books by such black authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones. She also taught English at two branches of the State University of New York. In 1984 she was appointed to an Albert Schweitzer chair at the University of New York at Albany. Currently, Morrison is Robert F Goheen Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, a position she has held since 1989. Though based in the Creative Writing Program, Morrison does not teach regular writing workshops with students, a fact that has earned her some criticism. Rather, she has conceived and developed the prestigious Princeton Atelier, a program that brings together talented students with critically acclaimed, world-famous artists. Together the students and the artists produce works of art that are presented to the public after a semester of collaboration. In her position at Princeton, Morrison uses her insights to encourage not merely new and emerging writers, but artists who are constantly trying to develop new forms of art through interdisciplinary play and cooperation.

Morrison's Novels

The Bluest Eye (1970)

Morrison wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye, while raising two children and teaching at Howard University. The novel's protagonist is Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl who prays each night to become a blue-eyed beauty like Shirley Temple. Breedlove's family has numerous problems and she believes everything would be okay if only she had beautiful blue eyes. Through the course of the novel, the narrator, Claudia MacTeer, describes the destruction of Pecola's life. The novel is set in a small Midwestern town, similar to the one Morrison grew up in. The novel is not only controversial in its subject matter but also in the way in which it is written. Morrison rejects a chronological structure and a single narrator, as she does in many of her works, for a splintered and multifaceted approach. The Bluest Eye was one of the famous novels of her tome.

Sula (1973)

Sula depicts two black woman friends and their community of Medallion, Ohio. It follows the lives of Sula, considered a threat against the community, and her cherished friend Nel, from their childhood to maturity and to death. The novel was nominated for the National Book Award.

Song of Solomon (1977)

Morrison's third novel, Song of Solomon, brought her national attention. The book was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club (the first novel by a black writer to be so chosen since Richard Wright's Native Son in 1949). A family chronicle similar to Alex Haley's Roots, the novel follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, a black man living in Chicago, Illinois, from birth to adulthood. The novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Tar Baby (1981)

Tar Baby takes place at the Caribbean mansion of white millionaire Valerian Street and focuses on the themes of racial identity, sexuality, and family dynamics.

Beloved (1987)

Beloved is loosely based on the life and legal case of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who killed her child to prevent the child from being taken back into slavery. The book's central figure is Sethe, who murdered her two-year-old daughter, Beloved, to save her from a life of slavery. The novel follows in the tradition of slave narratives but also confronts the more painful and taboo aspects of slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. When the novel failed to win the National Book Award, a number of writers protested the omission. The novel was released in 1998 as the film Beloved starring Oprah Winfrey. Morrison later used Margaret Garner's life story again in the opera of the same name.

Jazz (1992)

Jazz is the story of love triangles and murder during the Jazz Age. The main character, Joe, kills someone in a fit of passion. The fragmented narrative follows the causes and consequences of the murder.

Paradise (1998)

Morrison's first novel since winning the Nobel Prize is set in Ruby, Oklahoma. The story revolves around an attack on a former girls' school nicknamed "the Convent," now occupied by unconventional women fleeing from abusive husbands and unhappy pasts.

Love (2003)

Love is the story of Bill Cosey, a charismatic but dead hotel owner, and his widow and his granddaughter, who live in his mansion.

Politics

Morrison caused a stir when she called Bill Clinton "the first Black president", saying "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

She currently holds a place on the editorial board of The Nation magazine.

Works

Novels

• Love (2003)
• Paradise (1999)
• Playing in the Dark (1993)
• Jazz (1992)
• Beloved (1987)
• Tar Baby (1981)
• Song of Solomon (1977)
• Sula (1973)
• The Bluest Eye (1970)

Children's Literature (with Slade Morrison)

• Who's Got Game?: The Mirror or the Glass? (to be released in 2007)
• Who's Got Game?: The Ant or the Grasshopper?, The Lion or the Mouse?, Poppy or the Snake? (to be released in December 2005)
• Who's Got Game?: Poppy or the Snake?, (2004)
• Who's Got Game?: The Ant or the Grasshopper, (2003)
• Who's Got Game?: The Lion or the Mouse?, (2003)
• The Book of Mean People, (2002)
• The Big Box, (2002)

Short Stories

• Recitatif (1983)

Plays

• Dreaming Emmet (performed 1986)

Libretto

• Margaret Garner (first performed May 2005)

Non-fiction

• Remember:The Journey to School Integration (April 2004)
• The Black Book (1974)

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