Toni Morrison Biography

Toni Morrison, born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, was a novelist and professor who had won several prestigious awards for her literary works. As the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize among many other awards, she was one of the most brilliant authors in the genre of African American literature. The seeds for her future profession were sown by her father who told her stories and fables of the African culture which influenced her writings. Primarily a professor by profession, she began writing as a part of an informal group of writers and poets, and published her first novel ‘The Bluest Eye’. The critical reviews she got for her debut motivated her to write more. She developed a style of writing that is characterized by epic themes, descriptive dialogues and rich depictions of Black American culture. She went on to write several other novels that were critically appreciated and won her numerous awards. Her novel, ‘Song of Solomon’ was the first novel by a black writer to be chosen the main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club in almost four decades. She was already famous by the time the novel ‘Beloved’ was published but this book took her popularity to greater heights. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was later made into a film of the same name.