The renowned writer Toni Morrison passed away this week at the age of 88.
The celebrated writer was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993. The Harvard graduate was the author of 11 novels which were widely acknowledged both commercially and critically. Her sad demise this week in the Bronx has left the entire art and literary world mourning.
For Ms. Morrison’s writing, it is often said that one needs to be able to read her work. Her citation for Nobel Prize in literature read “Toni Morrison, ‘who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.’” She makes her readers really read, make them work, not as a task, not for medicine, but because writing is an art and readers should have a little art of their own. She was one primary inspiration behind many readers picking up their pen and foray into the professional and artistic world of writing.
Literary Mother for many Writers.
Her writing that explored Black identity in America and connected people from every walks. Her characters created acquaintanceship with the writers who seek solace in her work and thrived on being even half of a writer that Toni Morrison was. She has left behind not just her magnificent work that will go generations after generations but a lineage of writers who derived inspiration and guidance from her.
Edwidge Danticat, the prize-winning Haitian-American author, called Morrison, a literary mother to generations of writers, especially black women writers like her. To ask a writer about reading books of Morrison or how Morrison influenced their work is, in part, asking why they became writers in the first place.
Jamel Brinkley, the author of ‘A Lucky Man,’ read Morrison’s 1970 ‘The Bluest Eye’ in his teen years. He recounts feeling overwhelmed by what the novel had to say about racism, and about notions of beauty and ugliness.” He told The Associated Press that he felt like he was encountering something he hadn’t seen in a written work before, but at the same time, so much of the book’s sound and character felt familiar and affirmative to him, from life.
Julia Alvarez, the author of ‘How the Garcia girls lost their accents’ gives credit to Ms. Morrison for helping many writers in the margin. George Saunders credits her ‘Beloved,’ for opening up his ideas of historical fiction and helping to inspire the dreamlike novel. Recalling one incident, poet Nikki Giovanni says that after the death of her mother, she was devastated and called Toni about what to do, when she told her that she’s a writer and she should write.
The powerful woman behind a literary revolution and recipient of several awards made people better readers and writers. She gave them the vision to read and write and a wide view to look at the world. She taught people to be a reader and a writer in every true aspect. Her demise is a very tragic loss to the world, but we know that she’ll always be there through her work, and her legacy will continue through other writers whom she inspired into becoming a writer and for all the future generation writers who will gain a perspective from her work. Ms. Toni Morrison is deeply missed.