Dearly Beloved | The Indian Express

Dearly Beloved | The Indian Express

By Editorial |Published: August 8, 2019 1:05:00 am

Dearly Beloved

Posterity will remember Toni Morrison as a polyphonic poet who wrote in prose

Morrison had hailed Bill Clinton as the first Black president of the US





Toni Morrison, the foremost literary voice of Black America, has died aged 88 in the Bronx. No, these metrics are inappropriate for such a writer, with a voice as seductive as lucid dreams and as electrifying as distant thunder. Let’s try again: Toni Morrison, political novelist, essayist, literary editor, professor emeritus at Princeton, Nobel laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner and single parent of two sons, has died in New York after writing about a dozen novels, two plays and a libretto, five children’s books and essays too numerous to list. That’s the true account of a literary life well lived.





Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, aged 39 in 1970, and wrote on stolen time for years, juggling her responsibilities as an editor and parent, until she gained critical and popular acclaim with Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981) and Beloved (1987). It is a rare achievement to score on both registers. Writers of enduring literary value do not generally populate the New York Times bestseller list for decades on end, or get to be a favourite on Oprah’s show.





Morrison had hailed Bill Clinton as the first Black president of the US, despite the colour of his skin, because he was presumed guilty until proven innocent. The facts betrayed her in that messy matter, but undeterred, she attended the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first real African-American president, with childlike happiness. Now, Obama has paid tribute, calling her a “national treasure”, Hillary Clinton remembers her as a “queen”, and Morrison is being mourned the world over. Her work spoke of inequality everywhere, and readers worldwide will remember her not primarily as a Black writer, but as the poet singing of the despair and the wonder of everyday life in an unfair world, who happened to write in prose.