Toni Morrison, Whose Soaring Novels Were Rooted In Black Lives, Dies At 88

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August 6th, 2019

Toni Morrison was the author of Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She’s pictured above in Paris in 2

Michel Euler / Associated Press

When Toni Morrison received her Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, her remarks began with a reflection on the phrase once upon a time. In her signature, measured cadence, Morrison told the Swedish Academy she believed these were some of the first words we remember from our childhoods. She was 88.

Morrison died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, according to her publisher Penguin Random House. Her work focused on African-American life and culture, and she dominated an industry in which depictions of black life were often limited and rooted in stereotype.

Her masterwork, Beloved, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. A decade later, Oprah Winfrey produced and starred in a movie based on the book.

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