Rest in power, Toni Morrison (February 18 1931 - August 5 2019)
The acclaimed and pioneering American author Toni Morrison passed away on Monday night, aged 88.
Her family and publisher Knopf confirmed that the author had died in Montefiori Medical Centre, New York, following a short illness.
Morrison's oeuvre includes 11 novels, among which the Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved (1987), plays, short stories, and a libretto. The Source of Self-Regard - a collection of the author's essays, speeches and musings on society, culture and art - was published in February of this year.
Recognised for the pivotal role she played in chronicling the lived experience of black Americans, specifically women, Morrison herself became the first black woman to receive a Nobel Prize upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
Equally admired as she was acclaimed, the tributes paid to this remarkable author attests to the impact she had on shaping modern literature and readers alike:
We are profoundly sad to report that Toni Morrison has died at the age of eighty-eight.
— Alfred A. Knopf (@AAKnopf) August 6, 2019
“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019 pic.twitter.com/DWnElCpMKc
I will always go back to the fact that Toni Morrison wrote for Black people, for Black women -- not for white folks. It is possible to speak to our people and still reach the world.
— Charlene Carruthers (@CharleneCac) August 6, 2019
I am thankful for her life and the genius she shared with us all.
May she rest well.
Toni Morrison was a towering intellect, a brilliant scribe of our nation’s complex stories, a heartbreaking journalist of our deepest desires, and a groundbreaking author who destroyed precepts, walls and those who dared underestimate her capacity. Rest well and in peace. pic.twitter.com/nMkxXRtEoz
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) August 6, 2019
This Toni Morrison quote changed my life. pic.twitter.com/oLHbqolz25
— Aisha Saeed (@aishacs) August 6, 2019
I don’t even have the words. Every person alive was fortunate to share the planet with her. https://t.co/sd9BZa0KhM
— Adam Serwer🍝 (@AdamSerwer) August 6, 2019
Love these images of Toni Morrison.
— Shelby Ivey Christie (@bronze_bombSHEL) August 6, 2019
She was out here in a silky slip dress, no bra, rocking an afro living her best life in a New York disco party. 1974. pic.twitter.com/alB2MqLJfJ