Toni Morrison

-
TM 's eleven novels give her a place as one of the major American novelists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her books of non-fiction—speeches and essays on social and literary topics— give her an equally high place among American thinkers. She showed her versatility in less predictable genres: songs, theatrical works, and children's works in collaboration with her son Slade. Her themes have been summarized as the position of black people in US society; the damage men do to women; the sustaining bonds between women; the power of memory and the impact of the past on the present; the corruption of innocence; redemption.
Birne, Eleanor. “Drip-Feed”. London Review of Books, 19 Aug. 2004, p. 23.
23
In 1993 TM won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
  • BirthName: Chloe Wofford
  • Nickname: Toni
    She says: The Toni, a nickname, I got almost by accident.
    qtd. in
    Cooke, Rachel. “America is going backwards”. The Observer, 19 Sept. 2004, p. 15.
    15

  • Self-constructed: Anthony
    She took the name of Anthony when, at twelve, she joined the Catholic Church .
    Brockes, Emma. “Home truths”. The Guardian, 14 Apr. 2012, pp. Weekend 30 - 5.
    Weekend 33
  • Married: Morrison

Milestones

18 February 1931

TM was born as Chloe Anthony Wofford in the small steel town of Lorain, Ohio, USA, second of four children.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
92
Brockes, Emma. “Home truths”. The Guardian, 14 Apr. 2012, pp. Weekend 30 - 5.
Weekend 31

Early 1970

TM published her first novel, The Bluest Eye.
Book Review Digest. H. W. Wilson, 1913–2025.
(1971): 93

By mid-1987

TM published perhaps her most famous novel of all, Beloved, a historical work about the enslaved protagonist's relationship with her daughter, whom she kills to effect her escape from slavery.
Book Review Index. Gale Research.
(1987): 543

5 August 2019

TM died in Montefiore Medical Center, New York, of complications from pneumonia. Literary people worldwide responded with an outpouring of grief and appreciation.
Lea, Richard, and Sian Cain. “Toni Morrison, author and Nobel laureate, dies aged 88”. theguardian.com, 6 Aug. 2019.

Biography

Birth and Background

18 February 1931

TM was born as Chloe Anthony Wofford in the small steel town of Lorain, Ohio, USA, second of four children.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
92
Brockes, Emma. “Home truths”. The Guardian, 14 Apr. 2012, pp. Weekend 30 - 5.
Weekend 31