Lauded novelist Toni Morrison spoke last night in McAlister Auditorium in an event arguably more anticipated by the Tulane community than graduation or summer vacation.
Morrison's visit was made possible by the Creative Writing Fund, a $250,000 anonymous gift to the English department with a total pledge of $1.5 million, but as Tulane University President Scott Cowen noted, "tonight would not have been possible without the outstanding graduate and undergraduate students, as well as faculty, of the English department."
Morrison is one of the most distinguished visitors to grace Tulane's campus. For anyone familiar with her work, it was more than a gift to hear her voice illuminate words that have inspired such praise, not to mention essays and dissertations, attendees said.
The author of eight major novels, she was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for "Beloved" and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
Morrison holds degrees from Howard and Cornell universities and has taught at numerous institutions including Yale, Bard College and Rutgers. She was named the Robert F. Goheen Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University in 1989. Morrison has received a number of awards in addition to the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, among them the Modern Language Association of America Commonwealth Award in Literature in 1989 and the Distinguished Writer Award of 1978 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Though Morrison only spent a few hours in New Orleans, her trip was significant.
"I haven't been here in a couple of decades," she said. "I'm happy to be back."
President Cowen beamed during Morrison's welcoming reception.
"Having someone of her stature here in New Orleans is terrific," Cowen said. "She is an inspiration to us all. It's not every day we have a Nobel Prize winner in the city."
During her speech, Morrison read selections from four of her novels, "Beloved," "Jazz," "Paradise" and "Love." She decided to read the ends of the novels.
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