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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 |publisher=NOLA.com |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=
==Career==
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''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, 2018 | 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
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 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718101549/http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/imageserver.pl?oid=cs20050518-01&getpdf=true |archive-date= Jul 18, 2020 }}</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
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}}
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