A biography of the novelist Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is an African-American professor and novelist, whose books have had an enormous impact on the world of literature. Those who are familiar with her work, such as Tunde Folawiyo, will probably know that her novels have led to her winning several prestigious awards over the years; in 1988 she won a Pulitzer, and five years later she received the Nobel Prize for Literature. More recently, in 2012, she was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Born in Ohio in 1931, Morrison was named Chloe Ardelia Wofford (she chose to change her first name to Toni when she was a student at university).  She was an avid reader, and was often found poring over the writings of novelists such as Flaubert, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. An intelligent and talented young woman, she graduated with honours from her local high school, and went on to complete her undergraduate degree at Howard University.

In 1955, she received her MA from Cornell, after which she accepted a job at Texas Southern University. She remained in this position for two years, and then decided to return to Howard, to work as a lecturer. In the mid-1960s, she also took up fiction editing. In 1970 her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published; this work, with its poetic dialogue, complex characters and powerful theme, captured the attention of many, and was very well received by critics and readers alike. Morrison wrote this novel while teaching full-time at Howard, and raising her two young children.

In 1973 her second book, entitled Sula, was published; two years after its publication, it was nominated for the National Book Award. However, it was her third novel that established Morrison as one of the greatest writers of her time; Song of Solomon was selected for the Book of the Month Club, and also won the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Prize.

Her next work, Beloved, was written during the 1980s. Despite becoming a critical success, it was not chosen as the winner for the NBCC Prize, or the National Book Award. However, literature fanatics like Tunde Folawiyo might recall that a number of well-known writers and critics protested against this decision, and in 1988 it won Morrison not only the American Book Award, but also the Pulitzer Prize.  Her most recent work, Paradise, was released in the late 1990s.