{"id":138532,"date":"2019-08-06T12:55:20","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T16:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=138532"},"modified":"2019-08-06T12:55:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T16:55:20","slug":"toni-morrison-1931-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/06\/toni-morrison-1931-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Toni Morrison, 1931\u20132019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_138370\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/toni.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-138370\" class=\"wp-image-138370 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/toni.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/toni.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/toni-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/toni-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-138370\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toni Morrison. Photo: Angela Radulescu.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We are deeply sad to report that Toni Morrison died yesterday at age eighty-eight. Over the course of eleven novels and several essay collections, children\u2019s books, and plays, she reshaped the American literary landscape and influenced just about every English-language writer currently working. <em>The Paris Review<\/em> was lucky enough to conduct an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/1888\/toni-morrison-the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art of Fiction interview<\/a> with Morrison on the eve of her 1993 Nobel Prize win.<\/p>\n<p>Born to a family of talented musicians, Morrison came late to the realization that she wanted to be a writer, but in her interview, she is clear about her intentions: \u201cAll I can do is read books and write books and edit books and critique books.\u201d For twenty years, Morrison worked as an editor at Random House, where she published Gayl Jones, Nettie P. Jones, and Toni Cade Bambara. Once she finally did begin writing, she kept relatively quiet about it; when her first novel, <em>The Bluest Eye<\/em>, was published in 1970, her coworkers learned of the book\u2019s existence from a review in the<em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em>. \u201cIt was by the time I was writing\u00a0<em>Song of Solomon<\/em>, the third book, that I began to think that this was the central part of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cNot to say that other women haven\u2019t said it all along, but for a woman to say, I am a writer, is difficult \u2026 It isn\u2019t so difficult <em>anymore<\/em>, but it certainly was for me and for women of my generation or my class or my race.\u201d <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As in most Art of Fiction interviews, the conversation with Morrison touches on her rituals and routines. She wrote <em>Beloved<\/em>, the book widely regarded as her masterpiece, in the early hours of the morning. \u201cI, at first, thought I didn\u2019t have a ritual, but then I remembered that I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark\u2014it must be dark\u2014and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come,\u201d she says. \u201cWriters all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It\u2019s not being <em>in<\/em>\u00a0the light, it\u2019s being there\u00a0<em>before it arrives<\/em>. It enables me, in some sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although the white literary establishment was slow to pick up on the power of Morrison\u2019s work, she was always unapologetic in her focus on the black American experience. \u201cIt\u2019s very important to me that my work be African American; if it assimilates into a different or larger pool, so much the better,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I shouldn\u2019t be <em>asked<\/em> to do that. Joyce is not asked to do that. Tolstoy is not. I mean, they can all be Russian, French, Irish or Catholic, they write out of where they come from, and I do too. It just so happens that that space for me is African American.\u201d Later, recalling an interview with the journalist Bill Moyers in which he asked if she\u2019d ever consider writing a book that doesn\u2019t prominently feature black characters, she said, \u201cI\u2019m gonna stay out here on the margin, and let the center look for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She will be greatly missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are deeply sad to report that Toni Morrison died yesterday at age eighty-eight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - 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