Literature

Toni Morrison

Born February 18, 1931 · Lorain, Ohio · Joined the Ancestors August 5, 2019

The first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Toni Morrison gave the Black experience a language so beautiful it changed what American literature could be.

Known For

Nobel Prize in Literature, 1993

Key Works

Beloved, Song of Solomon

Legacy

Redefined American literature

Toni Morrison, born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, grew up in a working-class family in Lorain, Ohio. Her parents filled the home with African American folklore, music, and storytelling that would later infuse her novels with their mythic power.

After graduating from Howard University and earning a master's from Cornell, she became a book editor at Random House — championing works by Angela Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, and Gayl Jones. Her own debut novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970.

Over the next five decades, Morrison produced a body of work that stands among the greatest in American letters: Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, and more. In 1993, she became the first Black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2012, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.