‘Beloved’ Author Toni Morrison Dead at Age 88

By N. Jamiyla Chisholm Aug 06, 2019

Author Toni Morrison, who in 1993 became the first Black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in literature,  died Monday (August 5) at age 88, her longtime publisher Alfred A. Knopf confirmed via Twitter. No cause of death was listed at publication time, but The Associated Press reports that she died at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

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rntMorrison, one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century, published 11 novels since her debut with 1969’s “The Bluest Eye,” which she said she wrote with little Black girls in mind. “I had to eliminate the White gaze,” she explained in the recently released documentary “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.”

Morrison was very familiar with the White gaze, having worked as a book editor for years, helping to launch literary careers for Black thought leaders like Muhammad Ali, Toni Cade Bambara and Angela Davis. But Morrison transcended the gaze. When her peers saw that the woman who had just given readers the complicated “Beloved” (1986) hadn’t been awarded a national prize since the National Book Critics Circle in 1977 for “Song of Solomon,” 48 Black authors openly protested in 1988; that same year, Morrison received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

And that was just the beginning. Over a half century, the Lorain, Ohio-native, who was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931, earned the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the National Humanities Medal. The world will mourn Morrison, but she leaves behind a treasure chest of Black love via the written word.

Many expressed their grief via social media:

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