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The 88-year-old won the Nobel prize for literature in 1993 and was the first black woman to do so. Most known for her novels Beloved, The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon, the influential writer hailed from Lorain, Ohio.
“Toni Morrison passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends,” the family announced in a statement. “She was an extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt who reveled in being with her family and friends. The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing.”
Scene film critic Sam Allard reviewed the documentary film devoted to Morrison's life and work, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am back in June and had this to say:
"Toni Morrison may be the most hypnotic speaker among any living writer. It's not only the precision and care with which she chooses her words; it's the quality of her voice — both authoritative and light. When she reads her own work, it doesn't sound like contemporary fiction. It sounds like she's reciting from memory some ancient myth. It's timeless and elegant in its simplicity. And yet her work is urgent and potent and endlessly revealing in its excavation of the human experience."Read the full review of the film right here.
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