Arts & Literature
A legendary life
Toni Morrison
Chloe Ardelia Wofford Morrison
February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019
Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and editor whose lyrical fiction illuminated Black history, memory, and identity.
Her story
A life that changed history
Toni Morrison wrote celebrated novels including The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. As the first Black woman editor at Random House, she helped bring important works by Black writers and public figures into print. In 1993 she became the first Black woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1993