People everywhere are so focused on the pandemic and its impact on life and society that commemorating literary landmarks might make one seem disengaged these days. Yet, it is precisely this backdrop – that of a global scourge highlighting the fissures in the fabric of our democracies – that makes Nobel laureate Black American writer Toni Morrison deeply relevant to us today as we mark the first anniversary of her death.
Morrison, who chafed at being called a ‘poetic’ writer, was self-avowedly political, in that she was conscious of her intention to write about the Black American experience from within, that is to say to write about it with autonomy and self-regard, to situate it out of what she called “the white gaze.”
Subjugated minds
Morrison, who wrote with truth, passion and, yes, poetry, about the lived experience of Black American people since the pre-Civil War days to the twentieth century counts among the all time greats of American literature.
