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"PinterestFacebook&amp;quot;She squeezes every last drop of power from her words. Reading her is like experiencing the English language for the first time. In person, she has the charisma of a politician and the slink of a movie star.&amp;quot;\n&amp;#8212;Thandie Newton, star of the film BelovedBy Daryl Chen\nWhen author Toni Morrison was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm, Sweden, her acceptance speech included these four elegant sentences: &amp;quot;We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.&amp;quot;\nMorrison, 76, has spent her life &amp;quot;doing language&amp;quot; with an honesty, beauty and conviction uniquely her own. The lone black girl in her kindergarten class in Lorain, Ohio, she was also the only child who already knew how to read. It was &amp;quot;me and the teacher,&amp;quot; she says. In high school and at Howard University, she devoured and analyzed the English lit classics: Woolf, Austen, Faulkner. But she was troubled by the lack of books written by women like her and about women like her. &amp;quot;There were a lot of books by black writers that were very political and confrontational and all about guys,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;What about young black girls who had never been the center of anybody&amp;#39;s literary intention?&amp;quot; Her solution? &amp;quot;No one had written them yet, so I wrote them,&amp;quot; she has said.\nIn her first novel, 1970&amp;#39;s The Bluest Eye (written while she was a working, single mother with two young sons), Morrison didn&amp;#39;t even include a biography&amp;#8212;she was that convinced the book would just disappear. Thirty-seven years later, this simple but powerful story of an abused child who longs desperately for blue eyes is a staple of classrooms everywhere. Her novels Tar Baby, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise and Love&amp;#8212;all filled with especially memorable female characters&amp;#8212;were published to enormous critical and popular acclaim. (In one survey of course catalogs at 25 liberal arts colleges, she was the most-assigned American author, living or dead.) &amp;quot;She [has] laid bare the complex humanity of black people in the most sophisticated style and manner,&amp;quot; reflects Cornel West, Ph.D., a renowned scholar and former colleague of Morrison&amp;#39;s at Princeton University. Says celebrated novelist Edwidge Danticat: &amp;quot;She&amp;#39;s one of the most powerful role models. Reading her at 17 made me have a very important conversation with myself about who I was and what kind of woman I wanted to be.&amp;quot;\nBut Morrison&amp;#39;s shocking, thought-provoking stories are as controversial as they are cherished. The Bluest Eye and Beloved were among the 10 books most challenged by parents and administrators in 2006, according to the American Library Association. &amp;quot;There are so many great books on the banned lists, I&amp;#39;d be almost embarrassed if mine weren&amp;#39;t on them!&amp;quot; she says, laughing. &amp;quot;As a matter of fact, my own sister banned The Bluest Eye from her children until they were 18.&amp;quot;\nCensorship has not stopped Morrison from winning almost every award and distinction available: the Pulitzer, the Nobel (she was the first African American to receive one in literature), a shelf full of honorary degrees, and the naming of Beloved in 2006 as the best American novel of the past 25 years by a group of the country&amp;#39;s most eminent critics. Morrison would be more than entitled to rest on this massive cushion of laurels, but she has continued to &amp;quot;do language&amp;quot; in its many forms. In addition to writing some of literature&amp;#39;s modern classics and teaching in the creative writing department at Princeton University from 1989 until her retirement last year, she has authored a play, critical essays, children&amp;#39;s books (cowritten with her son Slade), song lyrics and the libretto to an opera, Margaret Garner (based on the true story behind Beloved), which had its New York premiere in September. Now she is at work on a new novel. &amp;quot;Writing fiction makes me feel completely and totally free,&amp;quot; she tells Glamour. &amp;quot;I relish my other obligations&amp;#8212;mothering my children, being a good friend&amp;#8212;but this is the place where nobody tells me what to do.&amp;quot;\nA few years ago, Morrison gave a talk at a university and afterward invited the audience to ask questions. One man stood up, but upon being face-to-face with the legend herself, he sputtered, &amp;quot;You wait for years, and the only thing that comes out of your mouth is I love you.&amp;#39;&amp;quot; We can very much relate."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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