Toni Morrison, one of the most recognized black writers in the United States of America with numerous honors to her credit, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Loved and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Literature, he is widely recognized as one of the most important novelists of the 20th century. Therefore, her novels are widely taught around the world in Literature, History, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies programs.
His first novel, The bluest eye, published in 1970, told the story of a young African-American woman who believes that her incredibly difficult life would be better if she had blue eyes. She has continued to explore the African American experience in its many forms and periods in works such as Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977 which sold 3 million copies and was in the New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks and re-emerged on the best-seller list in 1996 when she was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for inclusion in Oprah’s Book Club and his fifth novel Beloved (1987), on the legacy of slavery, thus developing a large following among readers and critics who fell in love with his lyrical style, insightful observations, and vibrant storytelling.
He made his debut as a novelist in 1970 and soon gained the attention of critics and a wider audience for his epic themes, his unerring ear for vividly expressive dialogue fusing the rhythms of African American speech and music patterns with other literary influences, thus creating an entirely new discourse, and its richly expressive and poetry-laden depictions of the life and experience of African Americans through richly detailed depictions of black characters. Its central themes are the African American experience; in an unjust society in whose situation its characters continue to struggle to find themselves and their cultural identity in a society that deforms or prevents such essential growth. Morrison examines the experience of black women in particular within the black community, often exploring the experiences and roles of black women in a racist and male-dominated society. At the center of their complex and multi-layered narratives is the unique cultural heritage of African Americans.
His use of fantasy, his sinuous poetic style, and his rich interweaving of the mythical gave his stories great strength and texture. According to Charles Larson in the Chicago Tribune “Book World”, each of Morrison’s novels “is as original as anything that has appeared in our literature in the last 20 years. The contemporaneity that unites them, the worrying persistence of racism in the United States, is permeated with a urgency that only a black writer can have on our society. ” In all her works she has captured what she calls “the grace of blacks”, which “has been what they do with language.”
Toni Morrison has thus earned a reputation as a talented storyteller who reviews the geography associated with African American literature with her works that take place in black Midwestern villages rather than in the traditional settings of the urban north and rural south.
His first novel, The bluest eye (1970), set primarily in Lorain, Ohio, is an introductory novel about a victimized black adolescent who, haunted by white standards of beauty, yearns for blue eyes.
His second novel, Sula,Published in 1973 and set in Medallion, Ohio, it examines (among other topics) the dynamics of friendship and expectations of conformity within the community.
The critically acclaimed Loved (1987) based on the true story of a runaway slave who, upon recapture, kills her young daughter to save her from a life of slavery, which won a fictional Pulitzer Prize, is set in post-civil war Ohio . .
Ohio is central to his work not only because he was born there or because it was one of the main stations on the Underground Railroad, but also because it represents “an escape from black stereotypes … that they are neither a plantation nor a ghetto.” However, since Morrison’s parents were immigrants from the South, his works also exhibit many influences from the Southern heritage. This is especially seen in its main theme of African American displacement, first from Africa, then from South to North, and what African Americans have done with their frequent moves.
In each of her novels, a protagonist physically leaves her home to learn about her inner life and how that life connects to a larger community. Growing up, Morrison experienced a vibrant African-American migrant culture as a result, developing an appreciation for his southern black roots, unlike Richard Wright.
The publication of Song of Solomon (1977) told by a male narrator in search of his identity; brought Morrison to national attention. Baby tar (1981), set on a Caribbean island, explores the conflicts of race, class and sex. Jazz (1992) is a story of violence and passion set in New York’s Harlem during the 1920s. His novel Paradise (1998) is a richly detailed portrait of a black utopian community in Oklahoma. His latest novel, Love (2003), is an intricate family story that reveals the myriad facets of love and its apparent opposite.
The volume of critical and popular acclaim that has arisen around the works of Toni Morrison is practically unmatched in modern lyrics. His six main novels: The bluest eye, Song of Songs, Sula, Tar Baby, Beloved, Y Jazz – they have brought him almost all the important literary awards. He received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 for Song of Solomon. In 1987, Loved was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Her work was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, making her the first African-American to be selected for the award and the first black woman to win it. His quote reads: Toni Morrison, “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic significance, brings to life an essential aspect of American reality.” To which his response was enthusiastic.
Morrison’s rise into literary creativity was given a boost when she became a textbook editor for a Random House subsidiary in 1965, in 1968, and became the lead editor, a job she held until 1985, placed at the who played a decisive role in obtaining the works. of several published young black writers. He edited books by Angela Davis, Tony Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones, and Muhammad Ali.
Morrison has also co-written children’s books with his youngest son, Slade Morrison, who works as a painter and musician. In this area it won a 2008 Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children – “Who Has Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Lion or the Mouse? Poppy or the Snake?”
Other major awards he has received include: the 1996 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Pearl Buck Award (1994), the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (Paris, 1994) and 1978 Distinguished Writer. American Academy of Arts and Letters Award.
Morrison was appointed Robert F. Goheen Professor of the Humanities Council at Princeton University in the spring of 1989. From 1989 until his retirement in 2006, Morrison held this Chair in the Humanities at Princeton University. Although based on the Creative Writing Program, Morrison, rather than regularly offering writing workshops to students after the late 1990s, conceived and developed the prestigious Princeton Atelier, a program that brings together talented students with acclaimed artists. critics and world famous. Together, students and artists produce works of art that are presented to the public after a semester of collaboration. In his role at Princeton, Morrison used his knowledge to encourage not only new and emerging writers, but artists working to develop new art forms through interdisciplinary play and cooperation.
Morrison taught English in two branches of the State University of New York. In 1984 she was appointed to the Albert Schweitzer Chair at the University of Albany, State University of New York.
At his 1979 graduation ceremony, Barnard College presented him with its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. The University of Oxford awarded him an honorary doctorate of letters in June 2005.
He currently sits on the editorial board of The Nation magazine.
In 1984 she was appointed to an Albert Schweitzer Professorship at New York University at Albany, where she educated young writers through two-year fellowships. He received the Anisfeld-Wolf Award in 1988 for Loved.. Morrison became a professor at Princeton University in 1989 and continued to produce great plays.
He held teaching positions at Yale University, Bard College, and Rutgers University.
He has given numerous public lectures on African American literature. In 1990 he delivered the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Massey Lectures at Harvard University. She held the position of Senior Editor at Random House for twenty years. He has degrees from Howard and Cornell Universities.
A host of colleges and universities including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Sarah Lawrence College, Dartmouth, Yale, Georgetown, Columbia University, and Brown University. they have given him honorary titles. Toni Morrison was commissioned by Carnegie Hall in 1992 to write the lyrics for “Honey and Me,” an original piece of music by Andre Previn with lyrics sung by Kathleen Battle. In 1997, he wrote the lyrics for “Sweet Talk,” which was written by Richard Danielpour and performed in concert by Jessye Norman.
Morrison has been a member of both the National Council on the Arts and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 2001 she was named one of the “30 Most Powerful Women in America.”
In November 2006, Morrison visited the Louvre Museum in Paris as the second in his “Grand Invite” program to be the guest curator of a month-long series of arts events on the theme of “The Home of the Stranger.”
For Morrison, the history and literature of the United States and our world today are “incoherent” without an understanding of the African-American presence. Therefore, his work always involves important contemporary social problems such as:
– the interrelation of racism, class exploitation and sexism, domination and imperialism
– spirituality and the power of oral folk traditions and values
– the mythical scope of imagination
– the negotiation of slippery boundaries, especially for members of oppressed groups, between personal desire and political urgency.
His work also articulates perennial human concerns and paradoxes, including the following:
– How are our concepts of the good, the beautiful and the powerful related?
– What is the good and the evil?
– How is our sense of identity derived from continuity while maintaining individual uniqueness?
Morrison has therefore said that:
If something that I do, in the way I write novels (or whatever I write) is not about the village or the community or you, then it is not about anything. I am not interested in indulging in some private and closed exercise of my imagination that only fulfills the obligation of my personal dreams, that is, yes, work must be political … It seems to me that the best art is political. and you should make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.
Morrison thus insists on a visceral relationship between writer and reader. In doing so, Toni Morrison has built a reputation as a talented storyteller.