Loraine, Ohio (February 18, 1931 -August 5, 2019) age 88 yrs

Toni Morrison, born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, was an American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher, and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1987, Morrison published her most celebrated novel, Beloved. Morrison was noted for her examination of black experience, particularly Black female experience, within the Black community. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. President Barack Obama presented Morrison with the Presidential Medal of Freedom May 29, 2012.