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{{About||the rugby league footballer|Tony Morrison|the American politician|deLesseps Morrison Jr.}}
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'''Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison''' (born '''Chloe Ardelia Wofford'''; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as '''Toni Morrison''', was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''
Born and raised in [[Lorain, Ohio]], Morrison graduated from [[Howard University]] in 1953 with a B.A. in English. She earned a master's degree in American Literature from [[Cornell University]] in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor in fiction at [[Random House]] in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her novel ''Beloved'' was made into a [[Beloved (1998 film)|film]] in 1998. Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of [[racism in the United States]] and the Black American experience.
The [[National Endowment for the Humanities]] selected Morrison for the [[Jefferson Lecture]], the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. She was honored with the [[National Book Foundation]]'s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters the same year. President [[Barack Obama]] presented her with the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] on May 29, 2012. She received the [[PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction]] in 2016. Morrison was inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in 2020.
== Early years ==
Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Duvall|first=John N.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iHbeC1I_aWUC&pg=PA38|title=The Identifying Fictions of Toni Morrison: Modernist Authenticity and Postmodern Blackness|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2000|isbn=978-0312234027|page=38|quote=After all the published biographical information on Morrison agrees that her full name is Chloe Anthony Wofford, so that the adoption of 'Toni' as a substitute for 'Chloe' still honors her given name, if somewhat obliquely. Morrison's middle name, however, was not Anthony; her birth certificate indicates her full name as Chloe Ardelia Wofford, which reveals that Ramah and George Wofford named their daughter for her maternal grandmother, Ardelia Willis.}}</ref> the second of four children from a working-class, Black family, in [[Lorain, Ohio]], to Ramah (née Willis) and George Wofford.<ref name="wofford">{{cite news| last = Dreifus |first=Claudia |author-link=Claudia Dreifus |title=Chloe Wofford Talks About Toni Morrison |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 11, 1994 |url=http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/texts/morrison1.html |access-date =June 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050115083953/http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/texts/morrison1.html |archive-date=January 15, 2005 |url-status=live }} [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/11/magazine/chloe-wofford-talks-about-toni-morrison.html Alt URL]</ref> Her mother was born in [[Greenville, Alabama]], and moved north with her family as a child. She was a homemaker and a devout member of the [[African Methodist Episcopal Church]].<ref name=":7">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/27/ghosts-in-the-house |title=Ghosts in the House: How Toni Morrison Fostered a Generation of Black Writers |first=Hilton|last=Als |author-link=Hilton Als |date=October 27, 2003 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|access-date=May 1, 2017}}</ref> George Wofford grew up in [[Cartersville, Georgia]]. When Wofford was about 15 years old, a group of White people [[Lynching in the United States|lynched]] two African-American businessmen who lived on his street. Morrison later said: "He never told us that he'd seen bodies. But he had seen them. And that was too traumatic, I think, for him."<ref name=":1">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morrison.html |title=The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison |last=Ghansah|first=Rachel Kaadzi |date=April 8, 2015 |newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref> Soon after the lynching, George Wofford moved to the racially integrated town of Lorain, Ohio, in the hope of escaping racism and securing gainful employment in Ohio's burgeoning industrial economy. He worked odd jobs and as a welder for [[U.S. Steel]]. Traumatized by his experiences of racism, in a 2015 interview Morrison said her father hated Whites so much he would not let them in the house.<ref>{{cite news |title=Toni Morrison Remembers |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062mp6k |date=Summer 2015|access-date=January 24, 2021 |agency=BBC}}</ref>
When Morrison was about two years old, her family's landlord set fire to the house in which they lived, while they were home, because her parents could not afford to pay rent. Her family responded to what she called this "bizarre form of evil" by laughing at the landlord rather than falling into despair. Morrison later said her family's response demonstrated how to keep your integrity and claim your own life in the face of acts of such "monumental crudeness".<ref name=":3">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/10/08/the-laureatess-life-song/10d3b79b-52f2-4685-a6dd-c57f7dde08d2/ |title=The Laureates's Life Song|last=Streitfeld|first=David|date=October 8, 1993 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref>
Morrison's parents instilled in her a sense of heritage and language through telling traditional African-American folktales, ghost stories, and singing songs.<ref name=":7" /><ref name="Mote">{{cite book |title=Contemporary Popular Writers |publisher=St. James Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-1558622166 |editor-last=Mote |editor-first=Dave |location=Detroit |chapter=Toni Morrison}}</ref> She read frequently as a child; among her favorite authors were [[Jane Austen]] and [[Leo Tolstoy]].<ref name="nola">{{cite news| last = Larson| first = Susan |title=Awaiting Toni Morrison |work=The Times-Picayune |date=April 11, 2007 |url=http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-8/1176268522309540.xml&coll=1 |access-date=June 11, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930181626/http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fliving-8%2F1176268522309540.xml&coll=1 |archive-date = September 30, 2007 }}</ref>
Morrison became a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] at the age of 12<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lithub.com/on-the-paradoxes-of-toni-morrisons-catholicism/|title=On the Paradoxes of Toni Morrison's Catholicism|first=Nick|last=Ripatrazone|website=Lithub.com|date=March 2, 2020|access-date=February 28, 2022}}</ref> and took the [[Christian name|baptismal name]] Anthony (after [[Anthony of Padua]]), which led to her nickname, Toni.<ref name="Brockes">{{cite news |title=Toni Morrison: 'I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness' |author-link=Emma Brockes |first=Emma |last=Brockes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/13/toni-morrison-home-son-love |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=April 13, 2012 |access-date=February 14, 2013}}</ref> Attending [[Lorain High School]], she was on the debate team, the yearbook staff, and in the drama club.<ref name=":7" />
==Career==
=== Adulthood, Howard and Cornell years, and editing career: 1949–1975 ===
In 1949, she enrolled at [[Howard University]] in [[Washington, D.C.]], seeking the company of fellow black intellectuals.<ref name=":9">{{cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/i-didnt-want-to-come-back-toni-morrison-on-life-death-and-desdemona-20150803-giqaxu.html|title='I didn't want to come back': Toni Morrison on life, death and Desdemona|last=Cummings|first=Pip|date=August 7, 2015|newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]|access-date=May 3, 2017}}</ref> Initially a student in the drama program at Howard, she studied theatre with celebrated drama teachers [[Anne Cooke Reid]] and [[Owen Dodson]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Toni Morrison: Memory and Meaning|editor=Adrienne Lanier Seward, Justine Tally|publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]]|isbn=9781626742048|first=Dana A. |last=Williams|chapter=To Make A Humanist Black: Toni Wofford's Howard Years|date=August 12, 2014 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7v4aBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT43}}</ref> It was while at Howard that she encountered [[Racial segregation in the United States|racially segregated]] restaurants and buses for the first time.<ref name=":1" /> She graduated in 1953 with a B.A. in English and went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1955 from [[Cornell University]] in [[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]], New York.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wilensky|first=Joe|date=August 6, 2019|title=Literary icon Toni Morrison, M.A. '55, dies at 88|url=https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/08/literary-icon-toni-morrison-ma-55-dies-88|access-date=December 13, 2019|website=[[Cornell Chronicle]]|language=en}}</ref> Her master's thesis was titled "[[Virginia Woolf]]'s and [[William Faulkner]]'s treatment of the alienated".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Wofford|first1=Chloe Ardellia|title=Virginia Woolf's and William Faulkner's Treatment of the Alienated|date=September 1955|url=https://newcatalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/1152836|publisher=Cornell University|access-date=March 5, 2016}}</ref> She taught English, first at [[Texas Southern University]] in [[Houston]] from 1955 to 1957, and then at Howard University for the next seven years. While teaching at Howard, she met Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect, whom she married in 1958. Their first son was born in 1961 and she was pregnant with their second son when she and Harold divorced in 1964.<ref name="Mote" /><ref name=":2">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/25/toni-morrison-books-interview-god-help-the-child|title=Toni Morrison: 'I'm writing for black people ... I don't have to apologize'|last=Hoby|first=Hermione|author-link=Hermione Hoby|date=April 25, 2015|work=The Guardian|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Gillespie |first=Carmen |title=Critical Companion to Toni Morrison: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2007 |isbn=978-1438108575 |page=6}}</ref>
After her divorce and the birth of her son Slade in 1965, Morrison began working as an editor for L. W. Singer, a textbook division of publisher [[Random House]],<ref name=":7" /> in [[Syracuse, New York|Syracuse]], New York. Two years later, she transferred to Random House in New York City, where she became their first black woman senior editor in the fiction department.<ref name="ReferenceA">[http://www.biography.com/people/toni-morrison-9415590 "Toni Morrison Biography"], Bio.com, April 2, 2014. Retrieved October 31, 2015.</ref><ref name="nobel">{{cite news |last=Grimes |first= William |title=Toni Morrison Is '93 Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 8, 1993 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/28957.html |access-date =June 11, 2007}}</ref>
In that capacity, Morrison played a vital role in bringing [[African-American literature|Black literature]] into the mainstream. One of the first books she worked on was the groundbreaking ''Contemporary African Literature'' (1972), a collection that included work by Nigerian writers [[Wole Soyinka]], [[Chinua Achebe]], and South African playwright [[Athol Fugard]].<ref name=":7" /> She fostered a new generation of Afro-American writers,<ref name=":7" /> including poet and novelist [[Toni Cade Bambara]], radical activist [[Angela Davis]], [[Black Panther Party|Black Panther]] [[Huey P. Newton|Huey Newton]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-07/toni-morrison-nobel-prize-winning-author-dies-at-88/11390016|title=Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison dies at 88|date=August 7, 2019|website=ABC News|access-date=August 7, 2019}}</ref> and novelist [[Gayl Jones]], whose writing Morrison discovered. She also brought to publication the 1975 [[autobiography]] of the outspoken boxing champion [[Muhammad Ali]], ''[[The Greatest: My Own Story]]''. In addition, she published and promoted the work of [[Henry Dumas]],<ref>{{cite journal | last=Morrison | first=Toni | jstor=2904523 | title=On behalf of Henry Dumas | journal=[[Black American Literature Forum]] | volume=22 | issue=2 | date=Summer 1988 | pages=310–312 | doi=10.2307/2904523 | issn=0148-6179 }}</ref> a little-known novelist and poet who in 1968 had been shot to death by a transit officer in the [[New York City Subway]].<ref name=":1" /><ref name="paradise">{{cite news| last = Verdelle| first = A. J. | title = Paradise found: a talk with Toni Morrison about her new novel – Nobel Laureate's new book, 'Paradise' – Interview| magazine = [[Essence (magazine)|Essence]]| date = February 1998| url= http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_n10_v28/ai_20187690/pg_2| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130811053111/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_n10_v28/ai_20187690/pg_2| url-status = dead| archive-date = August 11, 2013| access-date =June 11, 2007 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>
Among other books that Morrison developed and edited is ''[[The Black Book (Morrison book)|The Black Book]]'' (1974), an anthology of photographs, illustrations, essays, and documents of Black life in the United States from the time of slavery to the 1920s.<ref name=":1" /> Random House had been uncertain about the project but its publication met with a good reception. Alvin Beam reviewed the anthology for the [[Cleveland]] ''[[The Plain Dealer|Plain Dealer]]'', writing: "Editors, like novelists, have brain children{{snd}}books they think up and bring to life without putting their own names on the title page. Mrs. Morrison has one of these in the stores now, and magazines and newsletters in the publishing trade are ecstatic, saying it will go like hotcakes."<ref name=":7" />
=== First writings and teaching, 1970–1986 ===
Morrison had begun writing fiction as part of an informal group of poets and writers at Howard University who met to discuss their work. She attended one meeting with a short story about a Black girl who longed to have [[blue eyes]]. Morrison later developed the story as her first novel, ''[[The Bluest Eye]]'', getting up every morning at 4 am to write, while raising two children on her own.<ref name=":2" />
[[File:Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye author portrait).jpg|thumb|upright|Morrison's portrait on the first-edition [[dust jacket]] of ''[[The Bluest Eye]]''{{nbsp}}(1970)]]
''The Bluest Eye'' was published by [[Holt, Rinehart, and Winston]] in 1970, when Morrison was aged 39.<ref name="nobel" /> It was favorably reviewed in ''[[The New York Times]]'' by [[John Leonard (critic)|John Leonard]], who praised Morrison's writing style as being "a prose so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry ... But ''The Bluest Eye'' is also history, sociology, folklore, nightmare and music."<ref>{{cite news | last=Leonard | first=John | title=Books of The Times | newspaper=[[The New York Times]] | date=November 13, 1970 | url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/morrison-bluest.html | access-date=August 12, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190809092939/http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/morrison-bluest.html | archive-date=August 9, 2019 | url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> The novel did not sell well at first, but the [[City University of New York]] put ''The Bluest Eye'' on its reading list for its new [[Black studies]] department, as did other colleges, which boosted sales.<ref name="Kachka">{{cite web | title=Who Is the Author of Toni Morrison? | first=Boris | last=Kachka | work=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] | date=April 27, 2012 | url=http://nymag.com/news/features/toni-morrison-2012-5/ | access-date=August 7, 2019}}</ref> The book also brought Morrison to the attention of the acclaimed editor [[Robert Gottlieb]] at [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]], an imprint of the publisher Random House. Gottlieb later edited all but one of Morrison's novels.<ref name="Kachka" />
In 1975, Morrison's second novel ''[[Sula (novel)|Sula]]'' (1973), about a friendship between two Black women, was nominated for the [[National Book Award]]. Her third novel, ''[[Song of Solomon (novel)|Song of Solomon]]'' (1977), follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, from birth to adulthood, as he discovers his heritage. This novel brought her national acclaim, being a main selection of the [[Book of the Month Club]], the first novel by a Black writer to be so chosen since [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]]'s ''[[Native Son]]'' in 1940.<ref>[[Margaret Busby|Busby, Margaret]] (October 9, 1993), [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/books-toni-morrison-beloved-and-all-that-jazz-margaret-busby-on-the-new-nobel-laureate-whose-wisdom-1509591.html "Books: Toni Morrison: beloved and all that jazz ..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422035020/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/books-toni-morrison-beloved-and-all-that-jazz-margaret-busby-on-the-new-nobel-laureate-whose-wisdom-1509591.html |date=April 22, 2019 }}, ''[[The Independent]]''.</ref> ''Song of Solomon'' also won the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards|title=All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists|publisher=National Book Critics Circle|website=bookcritics.org|access-date=August 6, 2019|archive-date=October 6, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191006045535/http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
At its 1979 commencement ceremonies, [[Barnard College]] awarded Morrison its highest honor, the [[Barnard Medal of Distinction]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs20050518-01.2.32|title=Quindlen Tells Grads to Lead, Be Fearless |first=Megan|last=Greenwell|work=Columbia Daily Spectator |publisher=Columbia University Libraries|date=May 18, 2005|access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref>
Morrison gave her next novel, ''[[Tar Baby (novel)|Tar Baby]]'' (1981), a contemporary setting. In it, a looks-obsessed fashion model, Jadine, falls in love with Son, a penniless drifter who feels at ease with being Black.<ref name=":2" />
Resigning from Random House in 1983,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lithub.com/why-toni-morrison-left-publishing/?utm_source|website=Lithub.com|title=Why Toni Morrison Left Publishing|first=Dan|last=Sinykin|date=October 24, 2023|access-date=October 30, 2023}}</ref> Morrison left publishing to devote more time to writing, while living in a converted boathouse on the [[Hudson River]] in [[Nyack, New York|Nyack]], New York.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/26/nyregion/new-york-home-of-toni-morrison-burns.html|title=New York Home of Toni Morrison Burns|date=December 26, 1993|access-date=August 6, 2019|work=The New York Times|page=38}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | last=Jaggi | first=Maya | author-link=Maya Jaggi | title=Solving the riddle | work=The Guardian | date=November 14, 2003 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/15/fiction.tonimorrison | access-date=August 7, 2019}}</ref> She taught English at two branches of the [[State University of New York]] (SUNY) and at [[Rutgers University–New Brunswick|Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a28622158/toni-morrison-death-obit-tribute/|title=Toni Morrison's Monumental Impact on Literature and Culture Will Be Felt For Centuries to Come|last=Westenfeld|first=Adrienne|date=August 6, 2019|website=[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]|access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref> In 1984, she was appointed to an [[Albert Schweitzer]] chair at the [[University at Albany, SUNY]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-06/toni-morrison-first-black-woman-writer-to-win-nobel-dies-at-88|title=Toni Morrison, First Black Woman Writer to Win Nobel, Dies|last=Henry|first=David|date=August 6, 2019|work=Bloomberg|access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref>
Morrison's first play, ''[[Dreaming Emmett]]'', is about the 1955 murder by white men of Black teenager [[Emmett Till]]. The play was commissioned by the New York State Writers Institute at the State University of New York at Albany, where she was teaching at the time. It was produced in 1986 by [[Capital Repertory Theatre]] and directed by [[Gilbert Moses]].<ref name="playwriting">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/29/theater/toni-morrison-tries-her-hand-at-playwriting.html|title=Toni Morrison Tries Her Hand at Playwriting|first=Margaret |last=Croyden|date=December 29, 1985|work=The New York Times|access-date=May 1, 2017}}</ref> Morrison was also a visiting professor at [[Bard College]] from 1986 to 1988.{{Sfn|Fultz|2003|p=xii}}
=== ''Beloved'' trilogy and the Nobel Prize: 1987–1998 ===
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Some critics panned ''Beloved''. African-American conservative social critic [[Stanley Crouch]], for instance, complained in his review in ''[[The New Republic]]''<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://rvannoy.asp.radford.edu/rvn/444/beloved.htm|title=Literary Conjure Woman|last=Crouch|first=Stanley|date=October 19, 1987|magazine=The New Republic|access-date=May 8, 2017}}</ref> that the novel "reads largely like a melodrama lashed to the structural conceits of the miniseries", and that Morrison "perpetually interrupts her narrative with maudlin ideological commercials".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.salon.com/control/1999/01/19/crouch_2/|title=The bull in the black-intelligentsia china shop|last=Alexander|first=Amy|author-link=Amy L. Alexander|date=January 19, 1999|website=[[Salon (website)|Salon]]|access-date=May 8, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenewcanon.com/beloved.html|title=Beloved by Toni Morrison|last=Gioia|first=Ted|author-link=Ted Gioia|publisher=thenewcanon.com|access-date=May 8, 2017}}</ref>
Despite overall high acclaim, ''Beloved'' failed to win the prestigious [[National Book Award]] or the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]]. Forty-eight Black critics and writers,<ref>{{cite news | title=48 Black Writers Protest By Praising Morrison | last=McDowell | first=Edwin | work=The New York Times | date=January 19, 1988 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/19/books/48-black-writers-protest-by-praising-morrison.html | access-date=August 9, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://aalbc.com/tc/index.php?/topic/1615-writers-demand-recognition-for-toni-morrison-1988/|title='Writers Demand Recognition for Toni Morrison (1988)', June Jordan Houston A. Baker Jr. Statement|date=July 27, 2012 |via=AALBC.com's Discussion Boards}}</ref> among them [[Maya Angelou]], protested the omission in a statement that ''[[The New York Times]]'' published on January 24, 1988.<ref name="nobel"
''Beloved'' is the first of three novels about love and African-American history, sometimes called the ''Beloved'' Trilogy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/series/109788-toni-morrison-trilogy|title=Toni Morrison Trilogy by Toni Morrison|publisher=goodreads.com|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref> Morrison said they are intended to be read together, explaining: "The conceptual connection is the search for the beloved – the part of the self that is you, and loves you, and is always there for you."<ref name=":3"
In 1992, Morrison also published her first book of literary criticism, ''[[Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination]]'' (1992), an examination of the African-American presence in White American literature.<ref name="Anisfield">{{cite web|url=http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/books/beloved/|title=Beloved|publisher=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards |access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref> (In 2016, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine noted that ''Playing in the Dark'' was among Morrison's most-assigned texts on U.S. college campuses, together with several of her novels and her 1993 [[Nobel Prize]] lecture.)<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Johnson |first1=David |title=These Are the 100 Most-Read Female Writers in College Classes |url=http://time.com/4234719/college-textbooks-female-writers/ |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=February 25, 2016}}</ref> Lyn Innes wrote in the ''[[The Guardian|Guardian]]'' obituary of Morrison, "Her 1990 series of Massey lectures at Harvard were published as Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992), and explore the construction of a 'non-white Africanist presence and personae' in the works of [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]], [[Nathaniel Hawthorne|Hawthorne]], [[Herman Melville|Melville]], [[Willa Cather|Cather]] and [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingway]], arguing that 'all of us are bereft when criticism remains too polite or too fearful to notice a disrupting darkness before its eyes'."<ref name="Lyn Innes, Guardian obituary" />
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The movie flopped at the box office. A review in ''[[The Economist]]'' opined that "most audiences are not eager to endure nearly three hours of a cerebral film with an original storyline featuring supernatural themes, murder, rape, and slavery".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/node/177239|title=Beloved it's not|date=November 19, 1998|newspaper=The Economist|access-date=May 2, 2017|issn=0013-0613}}</ref> Film critic [[Janet Maslin]], in her ''New York Times'' review "No Peace from a Brutal Legacy", called it a "transfixing, deeply felt adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel. ... Its linchpin is of course Oprah Winfrey, who had the clout and foresight to bring 'Beloved' to the screen and has the dramatic presence to hold it together."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/16/movies/film-review-no-peace-from-a-brutal-legacy.html|title=Film Review; No Peace From A Brutal Legacy|last=Maslin|first=Janet|author-link=Janet Maslin|date=October 16, 1998|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=May 2, 2017}}</ref> Film critic [[Roger Ebert]] suggested that ''Beloved'' was not a genre ghost story but the supernatural was used to explore deeper issues and the non-linear structure of Morrison's story had a purpose.<ref name=RogerEbert />
In 1996, television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey selected ''Song of Solomon'' for her newly launched [[Oprah's Book Club|Book Club]], which became a popular feature on her ''[[The Oprah Winfrey Show|Oprah Winfrey Show]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/the-bluest-eye-by-toni-morrison|title=''The Bluest Eye'' at Oprah's Book Club official page|publisher=Oprah.com}}</ref> An average of 13 million viewers watched the show's book club segments.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Lister |first=Rachel |title=Reading Toni Morrison |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2009 |isbn=978-0313354991 |page=113 |chapter=Toni Morrison and the Media |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LLpR_AEfSEsC&q=toni+morrison+appears+on+Oprah+winfrey&pg=PA113}}</ref> As a result, when Winfrey selected Morrison's earliest novel ''The Bluest Eye'' in 2000, it sold another 800,000 paperback copies.<ref name=":7"
Winfrey selected a total of four of Morrison's novels over six years, giving Morrison's novels a bigger sales boost than they got from her Nobel Prize win in 1993.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2016/08/03/with-new-book-club-pick-oprah-has-still-got-the-golden-touch/|title=With New Book Club Pick, Oprah's Still Got The Golden Touch|last=Berg|first=Madeline|date=August 3, 2016|work=Forbes|access-date=May 2, 2017}}</ref> The novelist also appeared three times on Winfrey's show. Winfrey said, "For all those who asked the question 'Toni Morrison again?'... I say with certainty there would have been no Oprah's Book Club if this woman had not chosen to share her love of words with the world."<ref name=":8" /> Morrison called the book club a "reading revolution".<ref name=":8" />
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=== Princeton years ===
From 1989 until her retirement in 2006, Morrison held the [[Robert F. Goheen]] Chair in the Humanities at [[Princeton University]].<ref name="nola"
Though based in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton, Morrison did not regularly offer writing workshops to students after the late 1990s, a fact that earned her some criticism. Rather, she conceived and developed the Princeton Atelier, a program that brings together students with writers and performing artists. Together the students and the artists produce works of art that are presented to the public after a semester of collaboration.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gillespie |first=Carmen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qo5h9LqqanAC&q=morrison+princeton+atelier&pg=PA377 |title=Critical Companion to Toni Morrison: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2007 |isbn=978-1438108575 |page=377}}</ref>
[[File:Toni Morrison 2008-2.jpg|thumb|Morrison speaking in 2008]]
Inspired by her curatorship at the Louvre Museum, Morrison returned to Princeton in the fall 2008 to lead a small seminar, also entitled "The Foreigner's Home".<ref name="ReferenceA"
On November 17, 2017, Princeton University dedicated Morrison Hall (a building previously called West College) in her honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/20/princeton-dedicates-morrison-hall-honor-nobel-laureate-and-emeritus-faculty-member|last=Dienst|first=Karin|title=Princeton dedicates Morrison Hall in honor of Nobel laureate and emeritus faculty member Toni Morrison|publisher=Princeton University|date=November 20, 2017}}</ref>
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In May 2010, Morrison appeared at [[PEN World Voices]] for a conversation with [[Marlene van Niekerk]] and [[Kwame Anthony Appiah]] about [[South African literature]] and specifically van Niekerk's 2004 novel ''Agaat''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/4744/prmID/1984 |title=Toni Morrison and Marlene van Niekerk in Conversation with Anthony Appiah |work=PEN World Voices Festival |date=May 1, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121005064305/http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/4744/prmID/1984 |archive-date=October 5, 2012 }}</ref>
Morrison wrote books for children with her younger son, [[Slade Morrison]], who was a painter and a musician. Slade died of [[pancreatic cancer]] on December 22, 2010, aged 45,<ref name="Kachka"
In May 2011, Morrison received an Honorary [[Doctor of Letters]] degree from [[Rutgers University–New Brunswick]]. During the commencement ceremony,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.rutgers.edu/news-release/nobel-laureate-toni-morrison-speak-receive-honorary-degree-rutgers%E2%80%99-245th-commencement-may-15/20110208 |title=Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison to Speak, Receive Honorary Degree at Rutgers' 245th Commencement May 15 |work=Rutgers Today |date=February 8, 2011 }}</ref> she delivered a speech on the "pursuit of life, liberty, meaningfulness, integrity, and truth".
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Morrison had stopped working on her latest novel when her son died in 2010, later explaining, "I stopped writing until I began to think, He would be really put out if he thought that he had caused me to stop. 'Please, Mom, I'm dead, could you keep going ...?{{' "}}<ref name=":5">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/toni-morrison|first=Christopher|last= Bollen|title=Toni Morrison's Haunting Resonance|magazine=[[Interview (magazine)|Interview]]|date=May 1, 2012|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref>
She completed ''[[Home (Morrison novel)|Home]]'' and dedicated it to her son Slade.<ref name="Brockes"
In August 2012, [[Oberlin College]] became the home base of the Toni Morrison Society,<ref>[https://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/society.html "Society History"], The Toni Morrison Society.</ref> an international literary society founded in 1993, dedicated to scholarly research of Morrison's work.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://new.oberlin.edu/home/news-media/detail.dot?id=3873947|title=Oberlin College Establishes Partnership with Toni Morrison Society |publisher=Oberlin College|access-date=May 2, 2017|date=July 29, 2016 }}</ref><ref>Communications Staff (September 18, 2013), [https://www.oberlin.edu/news/toni-morrison-society-celebrates-20-years "Toni Morrison Society Celebrates 20 Years"], Oberlin College.</ref><ref>[http://www2.oberlin.edu/library/friends/perspectives/49.pdf "Morrison Society Office Dedicated"], ''Library Perspectives'' (newsletter of the Oberlin College Library), Fall 2013, Issue No. 49, p. 5.</ref>
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==Personal life==
While teaching at Howard University from 1957 to 1964, she met Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect, whom she married in 1958. She took his last name and became known as Toni Morrison. Their first son, Harold Ford, was born in 1961. She was pregnant when she and Harold divorced in 1964.<ref name="Mote"
Morrison began working as an editor for [[L.W. Singer Company]], a textbook division of Random House<ref name=":7" /> in Syracuse, New York. She moved with her sons as her career took her to different positions in different places.
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In the context of the [[2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries|2008 Democratic Primary campaign]], Morrison stated to ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine: "People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Sachs|first= Andrea|url=http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1738303,00.html |title=10 Questions for Toni Morrison|magazine=Time|date= May 7, 2008|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080509001557/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1738303,00.html|archive-date= May 9, 2008}}</ref> In the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] primary contest for the [[2008 United States presidential election|2008 presidential race]], Morrison endorsed Senator [[Barack Obama]] over Senator [[Hillary Clinton]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/29/headlines |title=Headlines for January 29, 2008 – Sen. Kennedy Compares Barack Obama to JFK |work=[[Democracy Now!]] |date=January 29, 2008 |access-date=May 30, 2012}}</ref> though expressing admiration and respect for the latter.<ref>{{cite web | last=Alexander | first=Elizabeth | title=Our first black president? | website=[[Salon (website)|Salon]] | date=January 28, 2008 | url=https://www.salon.com/2008/01/28/first_black_president/ | access-date=August 9, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090913050344/http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/28/first_black_president/index.html | archive-date=September 13, 2009 | quote=It's worth remembering the context of Toni Morrison's famous phrase about Bill Clinton so we can retire it, now that Barack Obama is a contender}}</ref> When he won, Morrison said she felt like an American for the first time. She said, "I felt very powerfully patriotic when I went to the inauguration of Barack Obama. I felt like a kid."<ref name="Brockes" />
In April 2015, speaking of the deaths of [[Shooting of Michael Brown|Michael Brown]], [[Death of Eric Garner|Eric Garner]] and [[Shooting of Walter Scott|Walter Scott]] – three unarmed Black men killed by white police officers – Morrison said: "People keep saying, 'We need to have a conversation about race.' This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back. And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a Black woman. Then when you ask me, 'Is it over?', I will say yes."<ref>{{cite news |date=April 19, 2015 |first=Gaby |last=Wood |author-link=Gaby Wood|title=Toni Morrison interview: on racism, her new novel and Marlon Brando |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/11532385/Toni-Morrison-interview-on-racism-her-new-novel-and-Marlon-Brando.html |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |access-date=April 22, 2015}}</ref>
After the 2016 election of [[Donald Trump]] as President of the United States, Morrison wrote an essay, "Mourning for Whiteness", published in the November 21, 2016 issue of ''[[The New Yorker]]''. In it she argues that white Americans are so afraid of losing privileges afforded them by their race that white voters elected Trump, whom she described as being "endorsed by the [[Ku Klux Klan]]", in order to keep the idea of [[white supremacy]] alive.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america#anchor-morrison|title=Mourning For Whiteness|last=Morrison|first=Toni|date=November 21, 2016|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/22/toni-morrison-decline-of-white-superiority-scared-/|title=Toni Morrison: Decline of 'white superiority' scared Americans into electing Donald Trump|last=Chasmar|first=Jessica|work=[[The Washington Times]]|date=November 22, 2016|access-date=May 1, 2017|archive-date=August 9, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190809020946/https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/22/toni-morrison-decline-of-white-superiority-scared-/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
=== Relationship to feminism ===
Although her novels typically concentrate on black women, Morrison did not identify her works as [[Feminism|feminist]]. When asked in a 1998 interview, "Why distance oneself from feminism?" she replied: "In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book – leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, a little ambiguity."<ref name="salon">{{cite news|last=Jaffrey|first=Zia|url=http://www.salon.com/1998/02/02/cov_si_02int/|title=The Salon Interview – Toni Morrison|date=February 3, 1998|work=[[Salon (website)|Salon]]|access-date=December 20, 2014}}<!-- {{Quote|'''Why distance oneself from feminism?''' In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book – leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, and a little ambiguity. I detest and loathe [those categories]. I think it's off-putting to some readers, who may feel that I'm involved in writing some kind of feminist tract. I don't subscribe to patriarchy, and I don't think it should be substituted with matriarchy. I think it's a question of equitable access, and opening doors to all sorts of things. --></ref> She went on to state that she thought it "off-putting to some readers, who may feel that I'm involved in writing some kind of feminist tract. I don't subscribe to patriarchy, and I don't think it should be substituted with matriarchy. I think it's a question of equitable access, and opening doors to all sorts of things."<ref name="salon" />
In 2012, she responded to a question about the difference between black and white feminists in the 1970s. "[[Womanism|Womanists]] is what black feminists used to call themselves", she explained. "They were not the same thing. And also the relationship with men. Historically, black women have always sheltered their men because they were out there, and they were the ones that were most likely to be killed."<ref name=":5" />
W. S. Kottiswari writes in ''Postmodern Feminist Writers'' (2008) that Morrison exemplifies characteristics of "[[postmodern feminism]]" by "altering Euro-American dichotomies by rewriting a history written by mainstream historians" and by her usage of shifting narration in ''Beloved'' and ''Paradise''. Kottiswari states: "Instead of western logocentric abstractions, Morrison prefers the powerful vivid language of women of color ... She is essentially postmodern since her approach to myth and folklore is re-visionist."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zVStc4m8euEC&q=toni+morrison+postmodern+feminist&pg=PA48|title=Postmodern Feminist Writers|last=Kottiswara|first=W. S.|publisher=Sarup & Sons|year=2008|location=New Delhi|pages=48–86|isbn=978-8176258210}}</ref>
=== National Memorial for Peace and Justice ===
[[File:Toni Morisson quote at National Memorial for Peace and Justice.jpg|thumb|A quote from Morrison at the [[National Memorial for Peace and Justice]] in [[Montgomery, Alabama]]]]
[[The National Memorial for Peace and Justice]] in [[Montgomery, Alabama]], includes writing by Morrison.<ref>[https://eji.org/national-lynching-memorial "The National Memorial for Peace and Justice"], EJI (Equal Justice Initiative).</ref> Visitors can see her quote after they have walked through the section commemorating individual victims of lynching.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/a-powerful-memorial-in-montgomery-remembers-the-victims-of-lynching/2018/04/24/3620e78a-471a-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html|title=A powerful memorial in Montgomery remembers the victims of lynching|last=Kennicott|first=Philip|date=April 24, 2018 | newspaper=The Washington Post | access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref>
=== Papers ===
The Toni Morrison Papers are part of the permanent library collections of Princeton University, where they are held in the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.<ref name=":11">{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/34/81I56/index.xml?section=topstories|title=Toni Morrison papers to reside at Princeton|date=October 17, 2014|publisher=Princeton University Office of Communication}}</ref><ref>Skemer, Don, [https://www.princeton.edu/news/2016/06/08/toni-morrison-papers-open-students-scholars-princeton-university-library "Toni Morrison Papers open to students, scholars at Princeton University Library"], Princeton University, June 8, 2016.</ref> Morrison's decision to offer her papers to Princeton instead of to her alma mater Howard University was criticized by some within the [[historically black colleges and universities]] community.<ref>{{cite web | title=Do Toni Morrison's Papers Belong at Princeton or Howard? | work=[[The Huffington Post]] | first=Chris | last=Branch |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/toni-morrison-papers-princeton-howard_n_6035026 | date=October 23, 2014 | access-date=August 7, 2019}}</ref>
Opening in February 2023, an exhibition titled ''Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory'', which was curated from her archives at Princeton University, commemorated the 30th anniversary of her winning the Nobel Prize.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/arts/design/toni-morrison-princeton.html|title=Illuminating Toni Morrison's Manuscripts at Princeton|first= Hilarie M.|last=Sheets|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 28, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/01/24/princeton-will-explore-toni-morrisons-creative-process-abundance-exhibitions-and|title=Princeton is exploring Toni Morrison's creative process with an abundance of exhibitions and events|website=Princeton University|date=January 24, 2023|access-date=September 22, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2023/04/30/1171897684/toni-morrisons-diary-entries-early-drafts-and-letters-are-on-display-at-princeto|title=Toni Morrison's diary entries, early drafts and letters are on display at Princeton|website=NPR|first=Neda|last=Ulaby|date=April 30, 2023|access-date=September 22, 2023}}</ref> Running from the week after her birthday until June 4, the exhibition featured rare manuscripts, correspondence between Morrison and others, and unfinished projects, taking its name from a 1995 essay by Morrison in which she spoke of a "journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.blackcatholicmessenger.com/toni-morrison-exhibit-princeton-2023/|title=Toni Morrison exhibit opening in February at Princeton University|first=Nate|last=Tinner Williams|website=Black Catholic Messenger|date=January 3, 2023|access-date=September 22, 2023}}</ref>
=== Day and halls ===
[[File:Morrison Dining Hall, Cornell University.jpg|thumb|right|Morrison Dining]]
In 2019, a resolution was passed in her hometown of [[Lorain, Ohio]], to designate February 18, her birthday, as '''Toni Morrison Day.''' Additional legislation was introduced to also proclaim that date as "Toni Morrison Day" throughout the [[State of Ohio]].<ref>Frazier, Charise (September 4, 2019), [https://madamenoire.com/1097594/toni-morrisons-hometown-declares-authors-birthday-as-toni-morrison-day/ "Toni Morrison's Hometown Declares Author's Birthday As 'Toni Morrison Day'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200213103500/https://madamenoire.com/1097594/toni-morrisons-hometown-declares-authors-birthday-as-toni-morrison-day/ |date=February 13, 2020 }}, ''[[MadameNoire]]''.</ref><ref>Joseph, Soraya (September 6, 2019), [https://thegrio.com/2019/09/06/toni-morrisons-birthday-recognized-as-toni-morrison-day-in-her-hometown/ "Toni Morrison's birthday recognized as 'Toni Morrison Day' in her hometown"], ''[[TheGrio]]''.</ref><ref>Woytach, Carissa (January 30, 2020), [https://chroniclet.com/news/199944/bill-designating-state-wide-toni-morrison-day-moves-forward/ "Bill designating state-wide Toni Morrison Day moves forward"], ''[[The Chronicle-Telegram]]''.</ref> The legislation, HB 325, was passed by the [[Ohio House of Representatives]] on December 2, 2020,<ref>[https://fox8.com/news/toni-morrison-day-closer-to-reality-in-ohio-bill-now-awaiting-dewines-approval/ 'Toni Morrison Day' closer to reality in Ohio, bill now awaiting DeWine's approval], Fox8, December 2, 2020.</ref> and signed into law by Governor [[Mike DeWine]] on December 21.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.morningjournal.com/2020/12/21/dewine-signs-toni-morrison-day-bill/ |title=DeWine signs Toni Morrison Day bill|website=The Morning Journal|first=Jordana|last=Joy|date=December 21, 2020}}</ref>
In 2021, Cornell University opened '''Toni Morrison Hall''', a 178,869 square-foot residence hall and '''Morrison Dining''' in 2022, an adjacent dining hall designed by ikon.5 Architects.<ref>{{cite web |title=3221-Toni Morrison Hall Facility Information |url=https://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilinfo.cfm?facil_cd=3221 |website=Cornell University Facilities |publisher=Cornell University |access-date=15 July 2023}}</ref><ref name="Wilensky">{{cite web |last1=Wilensky |first1=Joe |title=On North Campus, New Buildings Shape Future of Undergrad Community |url=https://alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/north-campus-new-buildings-shape-community/ |website=Cornellians |date=November 17, 2021 |publisher=Cornell University |access-date=15 July 2023}}</ref>
During December 2023, the Toni Morrison Collective at Cornell University to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Morrison's [[Nobel Prize in Literature|Nobel]] win partnered with Calvary Baptist Church to give away free copies of two of Morrison's books and hold book talks in various locations. As explained by Anne V. Adams, professor emerita of Africana studies and comparative literature and chair of the Toni Morrison Collective: “The fact that Toni Morrison, during her first year as a master’s student, lodged at a house just a couple of doors up the street from historic Calvary Baptist Church created a perfect context for a collaboration."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://as.cornell.edu/news/toni-morrison-collective-hosts-book-talks-giveaways-during-december|title=Toni Morrison Collective hosts book talks, giveaways during December|first=Anne V.|last=Adams|website=Cornell University {{!}} The College of Arts & Sciences|date=December 4, 2023|access-date=December 5, 2023}}</ref>
== Documentary films ==
Morrison was interviewed by [[Margaret Busby]] in [[London]] for a 1988 documentary film by Sindamani Bridglal, entitled ''Identifiable Qualities'', shown on [[Channel 4]].<ref>Bridglal, S. L. (December 15, 2015), [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/dec/27/the-day-i-had-tea-with-toni-morrison "Tea with Toni Morrison"], ''[[The Observer]]''.</ref><ref>[https://libguides.rutgers.edu/c.php?g=336816&p=2271988 "Videos on Literature and Philosophy: Literature in English, U.S."]. Rutgers University Libraries.</ref>
Morrison was the subject of a film titled ''Imagine – Toni Morrison Remembers'', directed by [[Jill Nicholls]] and shown on [[BBC One]] television on July 15, 2015, in which Morrison talked to [[Alan Yentob]] about her life and work.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b062mp6k/imagine-summer-2015-4-toni-morrison-remembers ''Imagine: Toni Morrison Remembers''], BBC One, Summer 2015.</ref><ref>{{cite news | last=Mangan | first=Lucy |author-link=Lucy Mangan| title=Imagine: Toni Morrison Remembers review – proof of a divine being | work=The Guardian | date=July 15, 2015 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jul/15/imagine-toni-morrison-remembers-review | access-date=August 9, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newn.cam.ac.uk/newnham-news/8598/|title=Newnhamite director makes BBC programme about Nobel laureate Toni Morrison|date=July 16, 2015|publisher=Newnham College, University of Cambridge|access-date=August 7, 2019}}</ref>
In 2016, Oberlin College received a grant to complete a documentary film begun in 2014, ''The Foreigner's Home'', about Morrison's intellectual and artistic vision,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://undertheduvetproductions.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/the-foreigners-home-a-feature-length-documentary-film-on-nobel-laureate-toni-morrison-2017-by-photojournalist-lisa-pacino/|title=The Foreigner's Home, a Feature-Length Documentary Film on Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison 2017 by Photojournalist Lisa Pacino|date=January 25, 2017|website=Under The Duvet Productions|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref> explored in the context of the 2006 exhibition she guest-curated at the Louvre.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theforeignershome.com/|title=Toni Morrison at the Louvre|website=The Foreigner's Home|access-date=February 12, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://canjournal.org/2019/11/toni-morrison-documentary-questions-what-it-means-to-be-a-foreigner/|title=Toni Torrison documentary questions what it means to be a foreigner|first=Brittany M. |last=Hudak|website=CAN Journal|publisher=Collective Arts Network|location=Cleveland|date=November 2019|access-date=February 12, 2021}}</ref> The film's executive producer was [[Jonathan Demme]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://videolibrarian.com/reviews/the-foreigners-home-toni-morrison-at-the-louvre/|title=The Foreigner's Home: Toni Morrison at the Louvre|website=Video Librarian|first=K. |last=Fennessy|date=December 19, 2018}}</ref> It was directed by Oberlin College Cinema Studies faculty Geoff Pingree and Rian Brown,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rianbrown.com/the-foreigners-home/|title=The Foreigner's Home|website=Rian Brown|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref> and incorporates footage shot by Morrison's first-born son Harold Ford Morrison, who also consulted on the film.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.oberlin.edu/articles/cinema-studies-faculty-make-documentary-toni-morrison/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421204301/http://news.oberlin.edu/articles/cinema-studies-faculty-make-documentary-toni-morrison/|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 21, 2016|title=Cinema Studies Faculty Make Documentary on Toni Morrison|date=April 21, 2016|work=News Center|access-date=April 29, 2017 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>
In 2019, [[Timothy Greenfield-Sanders]]' documentary ''[[Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am]]'' premiered at the [[Sundance Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/toni-morrison-the-pieces-i-am-review-1203113802/|title=Film Review: 'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am'|first=Nick|last=Schager|website=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|date=January 29, 2019|access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref> People featured in the film include Morrison, [[Angela Davis]], [[Oprah Winfrey]], [[Sonia Sanchez]], and [[Walter Mosley]], among others.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://filmthreat.com/reviews/toni-morrison-the-pieces-i-am/|title=Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am|last=Kikta|first=Lorry|date=April 14, 2019|website=Film Threat|access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref>
== Awards ==
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* 1993: [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature|website=NobelPrize.org|access-date=April 2, 2019}}</ref>
* 1993: [[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres|Commander of the Arts and Letters, Paris]]<ref name=":11"
* 1994: Condorcet Medal, Paris<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fultz |first=Lucille P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KgUhCI2w2eEC&pg=PR13 |title=Toni Morrison: Playing with Difference |date=2003 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0252028236 |page=xiii}}</ref>
* 1994: Rhegium Julii Prize for Literature<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matus |first=Jill L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d0T2_vT5G7cC&pg=PR14 |title=Toni Morrison |date=1998 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0719044489 |page=xiv}}</ref>
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[[Category:Writers from New York City]]
[[Category:Writers from Ohio]]
[[Category:Writers from Syracuse, New York]]
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