Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is the first African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Morrison is the second of four children in a black working-class family. After graduating Texas Southern University she moved on to Howard University and Cornell University. She made her debut as an author in 1970 with The Bluest Eye. Among her best known novels are Tar Baby, Song of Solomon and Beloved. Now, Morrison is 81 years old and still writing.
Awards
National Book Critics Circle Award (1977)
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1977)
Honorary degree, Barnard College (1979)
Pulitzer Prize (1988)
American Book Award (1988)
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award (1987-88)
Anisfield Wolf Book Award in Race Relations (1988)
Modern Language Association of American Commonwealth Award in Literature (1989)
Nobel Prize in Literature (1993)
Commander of the Arts and Letters, Paris (1993)
Rhegium Julii Prize for Literature (1994)
Condorcet Medal, Paris (1994)
The Pearl Buck Award (1994)
Jefferson Lecture (1996)
National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (1996)
National Humanities Medal (2000)
Honorary degree, Oxford University (2005)