Toni Morrison: An American Author

W hen you think about literature and its authors, it can be the tendency to think of writers from hundreds of years ago, who can not identify with the world you live in now. However, it is an entirely different experience when you research an acclaimed author who lives right now, just as you do, an influence as much as the rest.

 Toni Morrison (Chloe Anthony Wofford) was born on February 18 th, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, the second oldest of George and Ramah Wofford’s eventual four children.  Lorain Lighthouse Lorain, Ohio

 As a child, Chloe was very invested in her schooling, and had a great love of literature, even from an early age. She gives her parents credit for instilling in her a love of literature, of reading and folklore, and even music.

 Chloe grew up in an integrated neighborhood, and it has been said she wasn’t really aware of extreme social divisions in regards to race until her teenage years. She explained that she never felt inferior as a child, considering that when in the first grade she recalled “I was the only black student in the class and the only child in the class who could read.”

 In 1949, she graduated from Lorain High School with academic honors, before moving on to Howard University to continue on with her interest in Literature.  It was actually at Howard University where she started to go by “Toni”, an shortened version of her middle name, because people she encountered had a difficult time pronouncing “Chloe”.

 Majoring in English, with a minor in Classic Literature, she graduated from Howard University in She moved on to Cornell University to pursue her master’s degree, writing her thesis revolving around works by William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, before graduating in 1955.

 After spending two years teaching English at Texas Southern University, she returned to Howard University in 1957 to continue her teaching career there.

 Upon returning to Howard University, she was introduced to Jamaican-born architect Harold Morrison. She married him in 1958, and the couple were blessed with the birth of their son, Harold, in 1961.

 It was after the birth of her son that Morrison joined an on-campus writing group, where she began her writing career. In fact, it was with them that she began to write her first novel, originally only a short story. She made time for her two loves - her family and literature.

 It was in 1963 that Morrison left her job teaching at Howard University, and she and her family spent the summer abroad, travelling around Europe. However, she returned to the United States with only her son, Harold. Her husband had decided to leave her and he returned to Jamaica alone.

 It was at this time that Morrison was actually pregnant with their second child. Without her husband, and her young son in tow, she made the move back to Ohio to be with her extended family before the birth of her son, Slade in 1964.

 The year after, Morrison moved with her two young sons to Syracuse, New York where she became senior editor for a textbook publisher, before later going on work as an editor for Random House. It was there she had the privilege to read early drafts of works by African- American authors like Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones.

 In 1970, Morrison published her first novel entitled The Bluest Eye. The story detailed the accounts of a young African- American girl who believed that her life would be easier if only she had blue eyes. Though received warmly, it was not a bestseller. This was Morrison’s launch into her exploration of the African-American experience throughout the generations.

 Her work continued. In 1973, Morrison publisher her next work called Sula, which explored both sides of a friendship for two lifelong friends, and was nominated for the American Book Award along with Song of Solomon in  (That was the first work written by an African- American writer to be featured in the Book-Of-The- Month since Richard Wright’s Native Son.)  As an up and coming success in the literary world, in 1980, Morrison was appointed to the National Council on the Arts. She published Tar Baby the following year, receiving mixed reviews for the work inspired by folktales, but Morrison was living out her dream.

 In 1987, Morrison published Beloved, a novel that is considered to be “one of her greatest masterpieces.” The book earned the author several literary awards, but most significantly was the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

 In 1993, Morrison was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, becoming the first African-American woman to receive the honor.

 Morrison continued to influence not only readers with her work, but also young writers and performers. While working at Princeton University in 1994, she founded what was known as the Princeton Atelier, a workshop aimed to help these students express themselves in a variety of areas devoted to the arts.

 She also branched out into influencing other audiences. In the 1980’s, she devoted time to step into the role of playwright for her play “Dreaming Emmett”, but in the next decade, she also spent time being a lyricist for such composers as Andre Previn and Richard Danielpour

 Even young children were given the opportunity to experience Morrison’s creativity. Since the early 2000s, alongside her son Slade, Morrison has written several children’s books including Little Cloud and Lady Wind, The Book of Mean People and Peeny Butter Fudge.

 Morrison continued publishing her own novels during these times, such works as Jazz, Paradise, and Love. But she dabbled in the arts continually, even writing the libretto (which is the text of a musical work) for Margaret Garner, an American opera that showed the devastating nature of slavery from the perspective of the title character. The opera debuted at the New York Opera in  (Images from “Margaret Garner” to the right)

 Morrison continues to impact lives today, not through only her talent for written words but also protecting that very sacred art. After having one of her own books banned at a school, she feels strongly about the issue of censorship, and that one should respect the works of others.

 Morrison’s accomplishments and awards are numerous. She has been recognized worldwide for her contributions in education and literature, for her incredible dedication and her empowering voice in a variety of arts. Her resume of her astounding teaching at colleges and universities and the total of her book sales only attest to a certain amount of lives she has touched.

 From her childhood, she was invested in the storytelling of her family’s heritage, the reminder of where someone came from and their place in this world. These ideas were translated into her works, where her characters do their best to identify with the worlds they live, exploring such concepts as the beauty in goodness and friendship, and the bitterness of hatred and death.

 Morrison has made milestones, as inspiration to not only many women, but to women of her race, who see her being recognized prestigiously by presidents, by historians, by authors, and by the public itself. She has shared with the world her passion for the stories of African-American women, and proved her own incredible story in the process. The world awaits for what Toni Morrison might have planned next to inspire us all.

“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. “ - Toni Morrison

A&E Biography. 28 March 2012.” Bois, Danuta. Distinguished Women of Past and Present March The Nobel Foundation. 28 March "Toni Morrison." The Norton Anthology : American Literature Volume E. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Images obtained from images.google.com.