170 Toni Morrison

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Arts, History, Books

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2018

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

TONI MORRISON (b. 1931) is one of the most successful and admired authors in the history of American literature. Her novels include The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977) and Beloved (1987), which is widely considered to be her masterpiece. After successful careers in both academia and publishing during the 1960s and '70s, Morrison's critical and commercial success enabled her to devote more time to her writing. In 1993, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Morrison, "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality." In this episode, host Jacke Wilson intersperses Toni Morrison's biographical details and literary achievements with a discussion of his first encounters with Morrison's works and what they meant to him. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Maybe I'm responding because I have had reviews in the past that have accused me of not writing about white people.
0:19.0	I remember a review of Sula in which the reviewer said this is all well and good but one day
0:27.6	she meaning me will have to face up to the real responsibilities and get mature and write about the real
0:35.0	confrontation for black people, which is white people.
0:40.0	As though our lives have no meaning and no depth without the white gaze.
0:50.5	And I've spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.
1:00.0	And the people who helped me most arrive at that kind of language were African writers.
1:07.0	Chenowachebe, Bessie Head, Those writers who could assume the centrality of their race because they were
1:19.6	Africans and they didn't explain anything to white people.
1:25.0	Those questions were incomprehensible to them.
1:29.0	Those questions that I would have as a minority living in an all-white country like the United States.
1:37.0	But when I read the poetry of Cesar or the poetry of Sango or the novels particularly
1:45.0	things fall apart was more important to me than anything.
1:48.0	Only because there was a language, there was a posture,
1:52.0	there were the parameters, I could step in now and I didn't have
1:56.8	to be consumed by or be concerned by the white gaze. That was the liberation for me. It has nothing to do with who reads the books.
2:08.0	Everyone, I hope, of any race, any gender, any country. But my sovereignty and my authority as a racialized person
2:19.3	had to be struck immediately with the very first book.
2:23.0	Hello.
2:25.0	She was born Chloe Wofford in 1931.
2:28.0	Her middle name is often cited as Anthony,
	...

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