Toni Morrison's reputation as an intellectual and creative writer is well established. She has also become one of America's most recognized authors.

Even as a child, Toni was successful.

Born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, she graduated from high school with honors in 1949. She earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University in 1953, and her masters in 1955.

Morrison's literary success began in 1977, when she received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, for her novel 'Song of Solomon."

In 1987, her novel 'Beloved" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Then in 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for her work 'The Bluest Eye".

'It seems to me," said Morrison, 'that the best art is political, and you ought to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time."