NEW YORK – Nobel Prize-winning US author Toni Morrison has died. She was 88.
She was the author of 11 novels and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
Morrison’s family confirmed her death saying that she died “following a short illness.”
The family statement said the “extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt” had “passed away peacefully last night (August 5) surrounded by family and friends
It added, “The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing.
“Although her passing represents a tremendous loss, we are grateful she had a long, well-lived life.”
Her first novel was published in 1970.
Beloved published in 1987 and told the story of a runaway female slave was made into a film starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998.
Morrison once said: “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
She died at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York.
