Activists / Toni Morrison Posters

Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, in 1931 in Lorain (Ohio), the second of four children in a black working-class family. Displayed an early interest in literature. Studied humanities at Howard and Cornell Universities, followed by an academic career at Texas Southern University, Howard University, Yale, and since 1989, a chair at Princeton University.

She has also worked as an editor for Random House, a critic, and given numerous public lectures, specializing in African-American literature. She made her debut as a novelist in 1970, soon gaining the attention of both critics and a wider audience for her epic power, unerring ear for dialogue, and her poetically-charged and richly-expressive depictions of Black America. A member since 1981 of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has been awarded a number of literary distinctions, among them the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.

Novels

The Bluest Eye. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1970

Sula. New York: Knopf 1973

Song of Solomon. New York: Knopf 1977

Tar Baby. New York: Knopf 1981

Beloved. New York: Knopf 1987

Jazz. New York: Knopf 1992

Plays

Dreaming Emmet (performed 1986, but unpublished)

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