Toni Morrison

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the only American writer then living to have won the literature prize, began publishing novels in 1970. Over more than four decades her work has come to stand for some of the most important literary and intellectual conversations of her era. Her 2012 novel Home and her 2011 play Desdemona show that her imagination remains wide-ranging and sharp.

This volume, edited by Carmen Gillespie, looks at how Morrison has shaped culture and literature in her many roles: novelist, editor, publisher, reader, scholar, artist and teacher. It is meant for general readers, critics and students who want to weigh her influence. The contributors include leading Morrison scholars alongside poets Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez, novelist A.J. Verdelle, playwright Lydia Diamond, composer Richard Danielpour and photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Artwork, music and photographs appear throughout, and the book also features commentary from President Barack Obama and the first published interview with Morrison's Howard University friends, Florence Ladd and Mary Wilburn.

The collection goes beyond criticism and reference. It is presented as the first study to place Morrison's work in context and to examine her effect across disciplines, drawing on the same formal freedom and energy found in her own writing. Its organizing image is the clearing from her Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved, a place in the woods that is both lush and dangerous, both refuge and confinement. The essays use that image to explore the tensions Morrison raises about human life, approaching them with courage, resolve and grace.