 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toni Morrison | ||||
.jpg) "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality." | ||||
| Date |
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| Location | Stockholm, Sweden | |||
| Presented by | Swedish Academy | |||
| First award | 1901 | |||
| Website | Official website | |||
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The1993Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to theAfrican-American novelistToni Morrison (1931–2019) "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."[1][2] Morrison was awarded before the third novel of theBeloved Trilogy was published. She became the first black woman of any nationality and the second American woman to win the prize sincePearl S. Buck in 1938. She is also the8th woman to receive the prize.[3][4]
Toni Morrison's works revolve aroundAfrican Americans; both theirhistory and their situation in our own time. Her works often depict difficult circumstances and the dark side of humanity, but still convey integrity and redemption. The way she reveals the stories of individual lives conveys insight into, understanding of, and empathy for her characters.
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Morrison's unique narrative technique has developed with each new work. Among her well-known novels includeThe Bluest Eye (1970),Song of Solomon (1977),Beloved (1987),A Mercy (2008), andHome (2012).[5][2]
Toni Morrison was seen as a surprise choice. The strongest candidates according to the Swedish press wereHugo Claus, a Belgian poet, playwright and filmmaker who wrote in Flemish;Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet who had been a front-runner for some time (awarded eventually on1995);Bei Dao, a Chinese poet in exile; and the Syria-born Lebanese poetAdonis.Joyce Carol Oates andThomas Pynchon, were American contenders mentioned in speculations. Commenting on the choice of Toni Morrison,Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of the Afro-American studies department atHarvard University said: "Just two centuries ago, the African-American literary tradition was born in slave narratives. Now our greatest writer has won the Nobel Prize." "She's a masterful craftsperson, which people tend to overlook. She is as great and as innovative asFaulkner andGarcia Marquez andWoolf. That's why she deserved the Nobel Prize."[4]
Morrison delivered a Nobel lecture on December 7, 1993 about a "fable about the power of language to elucidate and cloud, to oppress and liberate, to honor and sully, and to both quantify and be incapable of capturing a human experience."[6][7]
In her acceptance speech, Morrison described the importance of language in our lives, saying: "We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives."[8]
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1993,Sture Allén, permanent secretary of theSwedish Academy, said:
In her depictions of the world of the black people, in life as in legend, Toni Morrison has given the Afro-American people their history back, piece by piece. In this perspective, her work is uncommonly consonant. At the same time, it is richly variegated. The reader derives vast pleasure from her superb narrative technique, shifting from novel to novel and marked by original development, although it is related toFaulkner and to theLatin American tradition. Toni Morrison’s novels invite the reader to partake at many levels, and at varying degrees of complexity. Still, the most enduring impression they leave is of empathy, compassion with one’s fellow human beings.[9]
