In her new book, award-winning novelist, Namwali Serpelle takes on one of the towering figures in American literature, Tony Morrison.

Serpelt guides readers through Morrison's extraordinary body of work, from her celebrated novels to her criticism, poetry, and plays,

offering close readings that illuminate the depth of Morrison's imagination, innovation, and craft. And it asks what it means

to read Morrison with fresh eyes in our time. I recently spoke with Namwali Sorpell about her book

on Morrison. Numwali Serpel, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me.

In this book, you focus on the entirety of Tony Morrison's work, the 11 novels, the play, beyond.

And early in the book you write, I never met Morrison. I never tried to either. I have loved

knowing her through reading her over the decades of my life. Why was it important to establish

that distance at the beginning, to make clear that the work, not the woman, was the

primary focus.

Thank you so much for that question.

Morrison herself had an aversion to what she called biographical writing.

She thought that human beings had a kind of copyright on their selves.

And so she said, you know, for her

writing was very much about invention, imagining someone from the curl to the full human being,

she said. She often advised her creative writing students, I don't want to hear about your little

selves. Don't write about yourself. I want you to write about other people. And when she contracted to write a memoir, she ended up canceling that project because she said, my life's not that interesting. So I sort of feel like I have the privilege of getting to know Morrison through her work in a way because she gives us that permission.

Reading and writing were also so foundational to what she believed and to how she herself related to other people.

She said, writing for me is a slow and advanced form of reading.

And so in that sense, I felt that kind of literary relationship was something that I really

wanted to unfold in my analysis of her work.

Rather than thinking about her as this kind of monument, right, to Black Excellence,

...