Nobel laureate Toni Morrison dead at 88
NEW YORK - Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in Beloved, Sula and other works transformed US letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, has died at age 88.
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced that Morrison died on Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York after a brief illness.
"Toni Morrison passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends," Morrison's family said in a statement through the publisher. "She was an extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt who reveled in being with her family and friends. The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing."
