22 Apr 2024, 00:00

Toni Morrison: a life in pictures

With novels including Beloved and The Bluest Eye, the acclaimed author who dramatised the African American experience with fierce passion for five decades, has died aged 88

Compiled by Joe Plimmer

Main image: American Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Tue 6 Aug 2019 18.03 BST Last modified on Wed 7 Aug 2019 08.38 BST

Toni Morrison, photographed in 1977. She was born in Lorain, Ohio in 1931
Photograph: Snap/Rex Features
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At home with her sons Slade And Fordin 1978
Photograph: Jack Mitchell/Getty Images
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Photographed writing in New York in 1979
Photograph: Jack Mitchell/Getty Images
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With a copy of her Beloved, for which she won the Pulitzer prize for in 1988
Photograph: David Bookstaver/AP
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Princeton University students congratulate her in 1993
Photograph: The New York Post via Getty Images
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President Bill Clinton embraces Morrison after awarding her a National Humanities medal in 2000
Photograph: Rick Bowmer/AP
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At Maya Angelou’s party
Photograph: Will McIntyre/The Life Images Collection via Getty Images
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Receiving the Nobel prize for literature from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in the Concert Hall in Stockholm
Photograph: AP
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Being awarded the Officier of the Légion d’honneur during a ceremony at the Culture Ministry in Paris in 2010
Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters
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Attending an HBO afterparty at Four Seasons Restaurant NYC in 2010
Photograph: Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
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With Oprah Winfrey at the Carl Sandburg literary awards dinner at the University of Illinois in Chicago, 2010
Photograph: Daniel Boczarski/FilmMagic
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Receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012
Photograph: Owen Sweeney/Shutterstock
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Portrayed by a graffiti artist during the unveiling ceremony of a memorial bench marking the abolition of slavery in Paris
Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images
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Speaking at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival in Wales in 2014
Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
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Photographed in her New York apartment for the Guardian in 2015
Photograph: Tim Knox/The Guardian
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Toni Morrison

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Toni Morrison: a life in pictures | Books

With novels including Beloved and The Bluest Eye, the acclaimed author who dramatised the African American experience with fierce passion for five decades, has died aged 88 Compiled by Joe Plimmer Tue 6 Aug 2019 18.03BST Last modified on Wed 7 Aug 2019 08.38BST

Toni Morrison: a life in pictures

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