Toni Morrison Commons, first floor

This space supported by Jan & Steve Oliva

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) is widely regarded as one of the most important American writers of our time. Her writing explores race, memory, and identity with profound insight.

Morrison’s first novel The Bluest Eye was published in 1970, and she went on to author another ten novels and three essay collections. Her novel The Song of Solomon (1977) won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her novel Beloved (1987) won the Pulitzer Prize. Morrison was awarded many distinctions over her lifetime including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, the Jefferson Lecture in 1996, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Morrison was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2020.