Toni Morrison, Author of ‘Beloved,’ Dies at 88

Famed author Toni Morrison has passed away at the age of 88. According to Vulture, which spoke with a source at her publisher Knopf, Morrison passed away Monday night, but the cause of death is not yet known. Morrison is best known for her work on Beloved, a 1987 novel about an African-American slave who escaped to Ohio after the Civil War. Beloved won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was later adapted into a film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover, whose performances helped popularize the author’s work.

Throughout her lengthy career, Morrison published dozens of books about the black experience in America, including Beloved, Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1997), three novels that form a loose trilogy. In 1988, she was awarded the Pulitzer and the American Book Award for Beloved, and five years later, in 1993, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first black woman to ever receive the honor.

In 1998, director Jonathan Demme adapted Beloved for the big screen alongside Winfrey, who starred and served as an executive producer. Winfrey plays Sethe, a former slave who moves in with an old friend from her plantation, Paul D (Glover). Shortly after, Sethe is visited by the spirit of a young woman, Beloved (Thandie Newton), who she learns is her reincarnated daughter. The film went on to win an Oscar for Best Costume Design, but more importantly, it helped popularize Morrison’s work to Oprah’s larger audience, and later, the world as a whole.

Morrison’s final novel was God Help the Child (2015), about a dark-skinned child who is abused by her light-skinned parents. After the novel was published, in 2016, she was awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, one of the highest honors in American literature.

Rest in peace, Toni Morrison. Your work will continue to be read by generations to come.

Where to stream Beloved