Background+and+Biography+of+Toni+Morrison

​ =Toni Morrison=



“Writing is what centered me. In the act of writing, I felt most alive, most coherent, most stable and most vulnerable” //-Toni Morrison//

//**Biography**// The first African American female to win the Nobel Prize in Literature was born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Toni Morrison was born as Chloe Anthony Wofford and was the second of four children in her family. “Chloe’s father, George, was a ship welder; her mother, Ramah, a homemaker” (Dreifus). The young Chloe expressed an interest in literature and went on to Howard University (1953) for a Bachelor’s Degree and continued towards her Master’s at Cornell University (Nobel). At Howard University, where she did undergraduate work in English, Chloe Anthony became known as Toni. She later claimed in an interview with New York Times that she was misnamed as Toni Morrison when “The Bluest Eye” was published because Toni is her “nickname”, not the name that her family would call her or that she would claim to be. Morrison studied at Texas Southern University as well as Yale, and even served as a Chair at Princeton University at one time in her career. In 1959, Toni Wofford married Harold Morrison, a Washington architect student and had two son’s named Harold Ford and Slade Kevin (Dreifus). About three months before Slade Kevin was born, Harold and Toni divorced and Toni accepted a job as an editor at L. W. Singer Publishing Company (Facts on File). Two years later, the editor was promoted to senior editor of Random House. It is at this point in Toni Morrison’s life that she began working towards publishing the first of many writing endeavors, //The Bluest Eye// in 1970 and //Sula// in 1973 (Chronology).The subject of Morrison’s marriage and divorce with Harold Morrison has been one of speculation however the author has failed to comment significantly on this matter of her personal life. Some describe Toni Morrison as quiet and private, yet compassionate. Toni Morrison now lives in Princeton, New Jersey and in upstate New York (Biography.com).

//**Influences**// Growing up during the 1930’s and the Great Depression, Toni Morrison is said to have first been moved by literature from writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austin, “and the nineteenth-century French writer Gustave Flaubert”. Their way with literature motivated her to express her familiar knowledge with the culture of African Americans and relationships within this context. It seems that Morrison has carried these influences and motivations through her writing career and accomplished.

//**Honors**// - Jimmy Carter appointed Morrison to National Council of the Arts in 1977 - “Beloved” was published in 1987 and nominated for a National Book Award. - In the same year,it was “nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and was the main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club” (Chronology). - Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for “Beloved”. - Received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. - Bill Clinton presents a National Arts and Humanities Award to Toni Morrison in 2001.

Morrison has authored several novels, including //The Bluest Eye//, //Beloved//, //Song of Solomon//, and //Jazz//. She is also accredited with various non-fiction pieces, such as //The Black Book// and and //Remember: The Journey to School Integration//. Morrison also wrote children books, including //The Big Box// and //The Book of Mean People// with her son Slade.
 * //Publications//**

//The Bluest Eye//, her first novel published in 1970, told the story of a young girl, Pecola Breedlove, living in a world where she believed beauty resided in the white skin and blue eyes of Shirley Temple. In the end, Pecola's quest for beauty results in madness. Although the book was not a commercial success, the novel received vast critical approval. Morrison's next novel, //Beloved//, was published in 1987. The novel depicted an escaped female slave who had rather kill her children then have them captured and returned into slavery. //Beloved// proved to be a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. Thought to be one of Morrison's best works, the novel was later made into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey.

Morrison is known for more than just her fiction. In 1983, she started writing her first play, "Dreaming Emmett" which was based on a true story. The play told the story of Emmett Till, a black teenager killed for whistling at a white woman in 1955. The play premiered in 1986 at the Marketplace Theatre in Albany. Furthermore, Morrison wrote the lyrics for 1992's Honey & Rue, a piece commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Kathleen Battle (Brainjuice.com). In the same year, a series of lectures originally delivered at Harvard University were compiled in the volume //Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination//. Morrison has also edited essay collections such as //Birth of a Nation'hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson case//.

//**Plays**// //**Children's Literature (with Slade Morrison)**// //**Nonfiction**//
 * //List of Publications//** (Heaton)
 * //Novels//**
 * //The Bluest Eye// (1970)
 * //Sula// (1973)
 * //Song of Solomon// (1977)
 * //Tar Baby// (1981)
 * //Beloved// (1987)
 * //Jazz// (1992)
 * //Paradise// (1998)
 * //Short Fiction//**
 * "Recitatif" (1983)
 * "Dreaming Emmett" (produced Albany, NY, 1986)
 * //The Big Box// (1999)
 * //The Book of Mean People// (2002)
 * //The Black Book// (1974)
 * "Behind the Making of the Black Book" (1974)
 * "Rediscovering Black History" (1974)
 * "Reading" (1975)
 * "A Slow Walk of a Tree (as Grandmother Would Say), Hopeless (as Grandfather Would Say)" (1976)
 * "I Will Always be a Writer" (1976)
 * "A Knowing So Deep" (1985)
 * "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//, edited and with an Introduction by Toni Morrison. (1992)
 * //Birth of a Nation'hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson case// (1997)
 * //Remember: The Journey to School Integration// (2004)
 * //What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction// (2008)


 * Works Cited**

Dreifus, Claudia CHLOE WOFFORD Talks About TONI MORRISON. New York Times Online, 11 Sep. 1994. Web. 3 Dec. 2009 <[]>.

Heaton, David. Toni Morrison Biography. 2009. 4 Dec 2009. [|www.jrank.com]

Nobel Lectures, Literature 1991-1995, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997.

"Toni Morrison." 2002. 8 Dec 2009. [|www.brain-juice.com]

"Toni Morrison." 2009. Biography.com. 5 Dec 2009, 03:45 [].