The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993

• Summary
• Press Release

Nobel Prize Award Ceremony

• Award Ceremony Speech

Toni Morrison

• Biographical
• Nobel Lecture
• Bibliography
• Banquet Speech

• Prose
• Nobel Diploma
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Toni Morrison

Born: 18 February 1931, Lorain, OH, USA

Residence at the time of the award: USA

Prize motivation: "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"

Language: English

Biography

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.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1991-1995, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.