Toni Morrison English 12 AP Introduction to Beloved

Family Life  Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford (1931)  Parents were George and Ramah Wofford  Morrison is the second of four children

Family Life  The Woffords moved to Lorain, Ohio from the South  The Woffords were in search of a racially friendly environment in which to raise their family.

Family Life  The Wofford household was entwined in the oral tradition of the Black South.  Songs, stories, and the “women’s gossip” would undoubtedly shape Morrison’s future writing.

Family Life  In 1958 Morrison married Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect  The Morrisons had two children together Harold Ford and Slade Kevin Harold Ford and Slade Kevin  The Morrisons divorced in 1964

School Days  Lorain High School 1949  BA in English – Howard University 1953  MA – Cornell University 1955

Teaching Career  Texas Southern University, Houston, instructor in English,  Howard University, Washington, DC, instructor in English,  Random House, New York, NY, senior editor,

Teaching Career  State University of New York at Purchase, associate professor of English,  State University of New York at Albany, Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities,  Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities, 1989-

Literary Career  The Bluest Eye (1970)  Sula (1973)  Song of Solomon (1977)  Tar Baby (1981)  Beloved (1987)  Jazz (1992)  Paradise (1998)  Love (2003)  A Mercy (2008)  Home (2012)

Literary Career In addition to her novels:  Dreaming Emmett (1986)  Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992)  As well as dozens of articles and collections of literary criticism, poetry, and short stories.

Literary Awards and Honors  Sula National Book Award nomination, 1975 National Book Award nomination, 1975 Ohioana Book Award, 1975 Ohioana Book Award, 1975  Song of Solomon National Book Critics Circle Award, 1977 National Book Critics Circle Award, 1977 American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1977 American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1977

Literary Awards and Honors  Beloved New York State Governor's Arts Award, 1986 New York State Governor's Arts Award, 1986 First recipient of the Washington College Literary award, 1987 First recipient of the Washington College Literary award, 1987 National Book Award nomination, 1987 National Book Award nomination, 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award nomination, 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award nomination, 1987 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 1988 Robert F. Kennedy Award, 1988 Robert F. Kennedy Award, 1988

Literary Awards and Honors  Elizabeth Cady Stanton Award from National Organization for Women  Nobel Prize for Literature, 1993

The Morrison File  "The problem I face as a writer is to make my stories mean something. You can have wonderful, interesting people, a fascinating story, but it's not about anything. It has no real substance. I want my books to always be about something that is important to me, and the subjects that are important in the world are the same ones that have always been important."

The Morrison File  "I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.... My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger."

The Morrison File  “Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company" (from Nobel Lecture, 1993).

Of Critical Note:  "[Morrison's novels] explore in particular the process of growing up black, female and poor. Avoiding generalities, Toni Morrison concentrates on the relation between the pressures of the community, patterns established within families,... and the developing sense of self" – Jennifer Uglow (Times Literary Supplement).

Of Critical Note:  "The word 'elegant' is often applied to Toni Morrison's writing; it employs sophisticated narrative devices, shifting perspectives and resonant images and displays an obvious delight in the potential of language" -- Jennifer Uglow (Times Literary Supplement).