And there is much talk about the impulse of Black writers to feel validated by the white “gaze” upon their work. We are also introduced to Morrison the senior figure at Random House, who wanted to help create a canon of Black writing. Specifically, the condescending suggestions that a writer so gifted should write about more than the Black experience.
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There is much discussion – from Morrison, plus Hilton Als, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez and others – about the reaction to her early novels. She is emphatic about the creation of narrative in her work, and anyone who reads literary novels should pay attention to her explanations of how she creates and how she wants the reader to react. From that, Morrison says, she learned the power of words.īut the meat of the program concentrates on Morrison as major novelist, distinguished scholar, accomplished editor and scold. Her mother was furious about some of those words and demanded they be washed away. She tells the story of learning to write and read and then writing words in chalk on the cement outside the family home. One can see the sources of the persona much-liked by the mainstream media when Morrison talks about her childhood. It sets out to examine her life and work, with many archived interviews from the author herself included, but is more ruminative and probing than it is hagiography. The program, beautifully made, and reflective, also has a distinct contemporary resonance, airing as it does at a time of seismic attention to anti-Black racism in the United States.īinge-watching guide: The recent shows you need to catch up on, all available to stream To her surprise, Morrison didn’t react with giddy excitement at hearing from Winfrey and the news about the movie.Īs Winfrey tells it, “The best part is, when Toni answered the phone, her initial reaction was, ‘How did you get my number?’ "Īmerican Masters – Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Tuesday, PBS, 8 p.m.) reveals a more complex Morrison than the cherished storyteller persona that grew around her after she won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, the first Black American writer to do so. She knew the area where Morrison lived and contacted the fire department there, who gave her the number. When Oprah Winfrey wanted to tell Toni Morrison that she intended to adapt Morrison’s novel Beloved into a movie, she couldn’t find a phone number for the famed author.