Morrison, Toni (Chloe Anthony)

Morrison, Toni (Chloe Anthony), née Wofford (1931– ), American novelist, born in Lorain, Ohio, educated at Howard University and Cornell. Her novels deal with the historical experiences of black Americans within a white social and cultural environment. The Bluest Eye (1970) recounts a year in the life of Pecola Breedlove, a victim of rape by her father. Succeeding novels included Sula (1974), the story of two young black girls, one of whom leaves the small Ohio community of their birth and returns ten years later; Song of Solomon (1977); and Tar Baby (1981). Beloved (1987) was set in the 19th cent. and is the story of a runaway slave who kills her daughter rather than see her brought up to slavery. (See slavery, literature of.) Her other work includes Jazz (1992) and a study of the significance of African-Americans in American literature, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992). She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.