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Toni Morrison National Treasure

Impact of celebrated author s work reverberates in nation s conscience

PHOTO BY: LEONARDO CENDAMO/GETTY IMAGES Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. "Toni Morrison was a national treasure,” wrote , who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. “Her writing was a beautiful, meaningful challenge to our conscience and our moral imagination." Magnolia Pictures

Notable Works of Toni Morrison

FICTION: The Bluest Eye, 1970 Sula, 1973 Song of Solomon, 1977 Tar Baby, 1981 Beloved, 1987 Jazz, 1992 Paradise, 1997 Love, 2003 A Mercy, 2008 Home, 2012 God Help the Child, 2015 NONFICTION: The Black Book, 1974 Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, 1992 Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality (editor), 1992 Remember: The Journey to School Integration, 2004 Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word (editor), 2009 The Origin of Others, 2017 The Source of Self-Regard: Essays, Speeches, and Meditations, 2019 Born in a poor, multiracial neighborhood in Lorain, Ohio, she only fully recognized racism when she went to college in Washington, D.C., and encountered segregated diners and a professor who discouraged her from writing about black characters in Shakespeare's works. “Racism was always a con game,” she said later, “to define black people as a reaction to white presence.” Criticized early in her career for her focus on black people as literary protagonists, she sought to convey universal truths about people by focusing on particular communities, as did her influences Jane Austen and William Faulkner. As she recently told Stephen Colbert, “There is no such thing as race. There's just the human race, scientifically. Racism is a construct, a social construct.” Not deferential enough for her Jamaican architect husband's liking, she and Harold Morrison were divorced in 1964. She then read an ad in The New York Review of Books for an entry-level job in publishing and moved to New York. “I wanted to see what it was like to be a grownup,” she told The Paris Review. In that role she discovered or popularized authors including Angela Davis, Wole Soyinka, Bill Cosby, and Huey P. Newton. Researching her best-selling historical anthology The Black Book, Morrison discovered the story of Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave who killed her infant daughter as they were about to be captured. Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > "If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it,” said Morrison. "What a gift to breathe the same air as her, if only for a while,” Obama said. More on entertainment AARP NEWSLETTERS %{ newsLetterPromoText }% %{ description }% Subscribe AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Health & Wellness offers > See more Flights & Vacation Packages offers > See more Finances offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS