Toni Morrison

Hello! My name is Toni Morrison, but when I was a little girl, my name was Chloe Ardelia Wofford. I was born on February 18th, 1931, in a town called Lorain, Ohio. My house was always filled with stories! My parents and grandparents would tell us amazing folktales and ghost stories, and they sang songs all the time. I fell in love with words and the magic of storytelling. I was also a big reader and joined the library's reading club when I was a girl.

My love for books took me to college at Howard University, where I decided to use the nickname 'Toni.' After college, I became a teacher. Then, in 1965, I got a very exciting job in New York City. I became a book editor at a big company called Random House. My job was to help other writers tell their stories. I loved helping them make their books the best they could be, especially writers who were Black like me, because I wanted their important stories to be shared with the world.

While I was helping other people with their books, I realized I had stories inside me that I needed to tell, too. So, I started waking up very early in the morning before my sons were awake to write. In 1970, my very first book, 'The Bluest Eye,' was published. I wrote about what it was like to be a Black girl in America. Later, in 1987, I wrote a book called 'Beloved,' which was a ghost story about a family's past. It was so special to me, and it even won a very famous award called the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.

My books were being read by people all over the globe! Then, in 1993, I received a wonderful surprise. I won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This is one of the biggest and most important awards a writer can ever receive. I was the very first African American woman to win it! It made me so proud to know that my stories, the ones about my people and our history, were seen as important to the entire world.

I lived to be 88 years old, and I filled those years with as many stories as I could. Even though my life came to a peaceful close, my words live on. My books are in libraries and schools everywhere, and they continue to help people understand each other a little better. I hope my stories inspire you to listen to the stories of others and maybe even to tell your own.