American writer Toni Morrison was born in 1931 in Ohio. She was raised in an African American
family filled with songs and stories of Southern myths, which later shaped her prose. Her happy family life
led to her excellent performance in school, despite the atmosphere of racial discrimination in the society.
After graduating from college, Morrison started to work as a teacher and got married in 1958. Several
years later, her marriage began to fail. For a temporary escape, she joined a small writers’ group, in which
each member was required to bring a story or poem for discussion. She wrote a story based on the life of a
girl she knew in childhood who had prayed to God for blue eyes. The story was well received by the group,
but then she put it away, thinking she was done with it.
In 1964, Morrison got divorced and devoted herself to writing. One day, she dusted off the story she had
written for the writers’ group and decided to make it into a novel. She drew on her memories from childhood
and expanded upon them using her imagination so that the characters developed a life of their own. The
Bluest Eye was eventually published in 1970. From 1970 to 1992, Morrison published five more novels.
In her novels, Morrison brings in different elements of the African American past, their struggles,
problems and cultural memory. In Song of Solomon, for example, Morrison tells the story of an African
American man and his search for identity in his culture. The novels and other works won her several prizes.
In 1993, Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is the eighth woman and the first African
American woman to win the honor.
【題組】42. Why did Morrison join the writers’ group?
(A) She wanted to publish The Bluest Eye.
(B) She wanted to fight racial discrimination.
(C) She wanted to be a professional writer.
(D) She wanted to get away from her unhappy marriage.
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