Toni Morrison nee Chloe Ardelia Wofford was born to a Welder and a Domestic Worker in Lorain Ohio, a steel town not too far away from Cleveland as the second of four children. She had healthy self-esteem that made her aspire for more and this was greatly influenced by her parent who encouraged her to read and form her own opinions from an early age.
Morrison attended Howard University for her college education and was an honours student in high school. She spent a lot of her free time at Howard in the theatre where she met and eventually married a Jamaican Architect, Harold Morrison.
She began her career as a book editor in 1964 working in the textbook division of Random House and spent close to 15 years there as one of the first African Americans in the publishing industry.
Morrison eventually rose and became distinguished as a Nobel Laureate and is well acclaimed for being a transformational force behind modern literature. Her very first book, the Bluest Eye was published when she was close to 40 and it gained quick and widespread popularity.
Asides being the first-ever African-American woman to receive a Nobel Laureate after just 6 novels, she was also a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her book, Beloved and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, some of her other notable books include Songs of Solomon, Sula, Tar Baby, God Help the Child and books for young children including The Big Box, The Book of Mean People and a number of other good reads.
She eventually passed away yesterday surrounded by close family and friends at 88 as published by Alfred A. Knopf at the Montefiore Medical Centre after a brief illness.
Many tributes have poured in for Morrison including that of the former President of the United States, who described her as a national treasure, as good a storyteller, as captivating, in person as she was on the page. Her writing was a beautiful, meaningful challenge to our conscience and our moral imagination. What a gift to breathe the same air as her, if only for a while.