Nobel Prize Winning Author Toni Morrison Passes Away at 88

Tuesday, August 06, 2019
GoLocalPDX News Team

Toni Morrison passes away at 88. PHOTO: West Point Military Academy/Flickr

Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison passed away at the age of 88 on Monday night in a New York City hospital. 

"We are profoundly sad to report that Toni Morrison has died at the age of eighty-eight. She died last night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York," said publisher Penguin Random House in a statement.

Morrison’s cause of death is unknown, according to NBC News. 

About Morrison

Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, becoming the first African American woman to be honored.

In 2012, Morrison received the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Works and Life

She is known for her 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved" and "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings."

The novel was later made into a film starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover in 1998.

Morrison was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio.