Toni Morrison is also known for her first book, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Sula and Beloved just to mention a few of those most well known. A Mercy is her ninth novel recently released this fall.Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, in 1931 in Lorain (Ohio), the second of four children in a black working-class family. Her parents moved to Ohio from the South to escape racism and to find better opportunities in the North.Toni Morrison is the first black woman to receive Nobel Prize in Literature. Her stories explore the experiences and roles of black women in a racist and male dominated society and celebrates the unique cultural inheritance of African-Americans.Storytelling is a tradition in the Black family as a way of sharing time together Morrison recalled listening to the older relatives use homespun wisdom when telling tales for hours at family gatherings when she was growing up in Ohio. Morrison’s relatives had her retell the stories she had heard from their mouths, a challenge she said she reveled in, adding her own embellishments to make the stories more outrageous. The stories, many of which she described as violent and “really terrible,” whetted her appetite for books, and to this day influence her writing.Read moreOmitunde, Publisher of African American Family ConnectionAn online magazine about African American Family values and community.Visit AAFC for the latest issue each month and a copy of "The Ripple Effect".
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