79-1069: Wofford may refer to: People with the surname [ edit ] Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, 1931–2019), American writer Dan Wofford , American politician Harris Wofford (1926–2019), U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, 1991–1995 James C. Wofford (1944–2023), American equestrian John Wofford (1931–2021), American equestrian John W. Wofford (politician) (1837–1907), Missouri judge and Georgia politician John William Wofford (1898–1955), American equestrian Mike Wofford (born 1938), jazz pianist Norma-Jean Wofford (c. 1942–2005), American guitarist Thomas A. Wofford (1908–1978), U.S. senator from South Carolina William T. Wofford (1824–1884), U.S. military officer Jenifer K. Wofford , American artist Places [ edit ] United States [ edit ] Wofford Heights, California , census-designated place Wofford, Kentucky , unincorporated community Wofford College , Spartanburg, South Carolina Topics referred to by
158-549: A Catholic at the age of 12 and took the baptismal name Anthony (after Anthony of Padua ), which led to her nickname, Toni. Attending Lorain High School , she was on the debate team, the yearbook staff, and in the drama club. In 1949, she enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. , seeking the company of fellow black intellectuals. She was the first person in her family to attend college, meaning that she
237-447: A Brutal Legacy", called it a "transfixing, deeply felt adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel. ... Its linchpin is of course Oprah Winfrey, who had the clout and foresight to bring 'Beloved' to the screen and has the dramatic presence to hold it together." Film critic Roger Ebert suggested that Beloved was not a genre ghost story but the supernatural was used to explore deeper issues and the non-linear structure of Morrison's story had
316-842: A company he bought a person." In 2003, Random House reentered the distribution business. Coinciding with the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the publishing industry was hit hard with weak retail sales. In May 2008, Random House CEO Peter Olson stepped down and was replaced by Markus Dohle . In October of that year, Doubleday, a division of Random House, announced that they would lay off 16 people, representing approximately 10% of its workforce. In early December 2008, which became known as Black Wednesday in publishing circles, many publishers including Random House took steps by restructuring their divisions and laying off employees. The reorganization consolidated and created three divisions, including Random House Publishing Group, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and Crown Publishing Group. Susan Kamil
395-658: A converted boathouse on the Hudson River in Nyack , New York. She taught English at two branches of the State University of New York (SUNY) and at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus . In 1984, she was appointed to an Albert Schweitzer chair at the University at Albany, SUNY . Morrison's first play, Dreaming Emmett , is about the 1955 murder by white men of Black teenager Emmett Till . The play
474-516: A diversification strategy. Random House acquired the paperback book publisher Ballantine Books in 1973. RCA sold Random House to Advance Publications in 1980. Random House began publishing audiobooks in 1985. In 1988, Random House acquired Crown Publishing Group . Also in 1988, McGraw-Hill acquired Random House's Schools and Colleges division. In 1998, Bertelsmann AG bought Random House and merged it with Bantam Doubleday Dell and it soon went global. In 1999, Random House acquired
553-710: A fresh look at William Shakespeare 's tragedy Othello . The trio focused on the relationship between Othello 's wife Desdemona and her African nursemaid, Barbary, who is only briefly referenced in Shakespeare. The play, a mix of words, music and song, premiered in Vienna in 2011. Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House . Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library , it quickly overtook Modern Library as
632-631: A friendship between two Black women, was nominated for the National Book Award . Her third novel, Song of Solomon (1977), follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, from birth to adulthood, as he discovers his heritage. This novel brought her national acclaim, being a main selection of the Book of the Month Club , the first novel by a Black writer to be so chosen since Richard Wright 's Native Son in 1940. Song of Solomon also won
711-644: A hundred percent subsidiary of Bertelsmann instead but de facto is led by the same management. It is the second largest book publisher in Germany with more than 40 imprints, including historic publishing houses Goldmann and Heyne Verlag , as well as C. Bertelsmann, the publishing house from which today's Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA would eventually evolve. Verlagsgruppe Random House is headquartered in Munich (with additional locations in Gütersloh (where Bertelsmann
790-574: A memoir or autobiography. Though based in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton, Morrison did not regularly offer writing workshops to students after the late 1990s, a fact that earned her some criticism. Rather, she conceived and developed the Princeton Atelier, a program that brings together students with writers and performing artists. Together the students and the artists produce works of art that are presented to
869-650: A new opera, Margaret Garner . Completed in 2002, with music by Richard Danielpour, the opera was premièred on May 7, 2005, at the Detroit Opera House with Denyce Graves in the title role. Love , Morrison's first novel since Paradise , came out in 2003. In 2004, she put together a children's book called Remember to mark the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954 that declared racially segregated public schools to be unconstitutional. From 1997 to 2003, Morrison
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#1732793996561948-411: A purpose. In 1996, television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey selected Song of Solomon for her newly launched Book Club , which became a popular feature on her Oprah Winfrey Show . An average of 13 million viewers watched the show's book club segments. As a result, when Winfrey selected Morrison's earliest novel The Bluest Eye in 2000, it sold another 800,000 paperback copies. John Young wrote in
1027-470: A share. This was a factor in decisions by other publishing companies, including Simon & Schuster , to later go public. American publishers Alfred A. Knopf , Inc. and Beginner Books were acquired by Random House in 1960, followed by Pantheon Books in 1961; works continue to be published under these imprints with editorial independence, such as Everyman's Library , a series of classical literature reprints. In 1965, RCA bought Random House as part of
1106-524: A staple of the college literary curriculum, which is to say a classic. This triumph is commensurate with its ambition since it was Morrison's intention in writing it precisely to expand the range of classic American literature, to enter, as a living Black woman, the company of dead White males like Faulkner , Melville , Hawthorne and Twain ." In November 2006, Morrison visited the Louvre museum in Paris as
1185-637: A story." In 1996, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture , the U.S. federal government's highest honor for "distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities". Morrison's lecture, entitled "The Future of Time: Literature and Diminished Expectations", began with the aphorism: "Time, it seems, has no future." She cautioned against the misuse of history to diminish expectations of
1264-628: A strong foothold: food, lifestyle, health, wellness, business, and Christian." "We must invest even more aggressively in title-level and scaled marketing programs, capabilities and partnerships", she added. In 2019, Penguin Random House acquired British children's book publisher Little Tiger Group, including Tiger Tales Press, a U.S. subsidiary, and added it to Random House Children's Books. Penguin Random House announced an agreement to purchase Boom! Studios in July 2024, where Boom! would become part of Random House Worlds. The publisher's main office in
1343-438: A welder for U.S. Steel . In a 2015 interview Morrison said that her father, traumatized by his experiences of racism, hated whites so much he would not let them in the house. When Morrison was about two years old, her family's landlord set fire to the house in which they lived, while they were home, because her parents could not afford to pay rent. Her family responded to what she called this "bizarre form of evil" by laughing at
1422-660: Is "so brutal and disturbing that it appears to warp time before and after into a single unwavering line of fate". Canadian writer Margaret Atwood wrote in a review for The New York Times , "Ms. Morrison's versatility and technical and emotional range appear to know no bounds. If there were any doubts about her stature as a pre-eminent American novelist, of her own or any other generation, Beloved will put them to rest." Some critics panned Beloved . African-American conservative social critic Stanley Crouch , for instance, complained in his review in The New Republic that
1501-517: Is based in Glenfield , Auckland , while Random House's Indian headquarters are located in New Delhi. Verlagsgruppe Random House was established after Bertelsmann's 1998 acquisition of Random House, grouping its German imprints (until then operating as Verlagsgruppe Bertelsmann) under the new name; before April 2020, it has explicitly no legal part of the worldwide Penguin Random House company and
1580-898: Is being reintegrated with the main Penguin Random House company and now known as Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial is Random House's Spanish-language division, targeting markets in Spain and Hispanic America . It is headquartered in Barcelona with locations in Argentina , Chile , Colombia , Mexico , Venezuela , Uruguay , and the United States. From 2001 until November 2012, it
1659-443: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (née Chloe Ardelia Wofford ; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison , was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye , was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won
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#17327939965611738-710: Is headquartered), Cologne , and Aßlar ), employs about 850 people, and publishes roughly 2,500 titles per year. Following the formation of Penguin Random House, a Penguin Verlag (with no legal connection to Penguin Books) was founded for the German market in 2015, as part of the Verlagsgruppe Random House. With Bertelsmann acquiring full ownership of Penguin Random House in April 2020, Verlagsgruppe Random House
1817-814: Is located in Rushden in Northamptonshire. In 1989, Century Hutchinson was folded into the British Random House Group , briefly known as Random Century (1990–92), Century became an imprint of the group's Cornerstone Publishing. The Random House Group also operates branches in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (as a joint venture under the name Random House Struik ), and India as part of its overseas structure. In Australia offices are in Sydney and Melbourne . In New Zealand it
1896-515: The African American Review in 2001 that Morrison's career experienced the boost of " The Oprah Effect , ... enabling Morrison to reach a broad, popular audience." Winfrey selected a total of four of Morrison's novels over six years, giving Morrison's works a bigger sales boost than they received from her Nobel Prize win in 1993. The novelist also appeared three times on Winfrey's show. Winfrey said, "For all those who asked
1975-541: The Babar children's books. Random House also hired editors Harry Maule, Robert Linscott, and Saxe Commins, and they brought authors such as Sinclair Lewis and Robert Penn Warren with them. Random House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the American College Dictionary , which was followed in 1966 by its first unabridged dictionary . In October 1959, Random House went public at $ 11.25
2054-688: The Beloved Trilogy. Morrison said they are intended to be read together, explaining: "The conceptual connection is the search for the beloved – the part of the self that is you, and loves you, and is always there for you." The second novel in the trilogy, Jazz , came out in 1992. Told in language that imitates the rhythms of jazz music, the novel is about a love triangle during the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. According to Lyn Innes , "Morrison sought to change not just
2133-482: The City University of New York put The Bluest Eye on its reading list for its new Black studies department, as did other colleges, which boosted sales. The book also brought Morrison to the attention of the acclaimed editor Robert Gottlieb at Knopf , an imprint of the publisher Random House. Gottlieb later edited all but one of Morrison's novels. In 1975, Morrison's second novel Sula (1973), about
2212-642: The National Book Critics Circle Award . At its 1979 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Morrison its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction . Morrison gave her next novel, Tar Baby (1981), a contemporary setting. In it, a looks-obsessed fashion model, Jadine, falls in love with Son, a penniless drifter who feels at ease with being Black. Resigning from Random House in 1983, Morrison left publishing to devote more time to writing, while living in
2291-773: The National Book Critics Circle Award . In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio , Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. Morrison earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University,
2370-459: The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. The citation praised her as an author "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality". She was the first Black woman of any nationality to win the prize. In her acceptance speech, Morrison said: "We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives." In her Nobel lecture, Morrison talked about
2449-534: The 1975 autobiography of the outspoken boxing champion Muhammad Ali , The Greatest: My Own Story . In addition, she published and promoted the work of Henry Dumas , a little-known novelist and poet who in 1968 had been shot to death by a transit officer in the New York City Subway . Among other books that Morrison developed and edited is The Black Book (1974), an anthology of photographs, illustrations, essays, and documents of Black life in
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2528-721: The African-American presence in White American literature. (In 2016, Time magazine noted that Playing in the Dark was among Morrison's most-assigned texts on U.S. college campuses, together with several of her novels and her 1993 Nobel Prize lecture.) Lyn Innes wrote in the Guardian obituary of Morrison, "Her 1990 series of Massey lectures at Harvard were published as Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and
2607-483: The Anglophone world. Ulysses transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it acquired Smith and Haas, and Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 1956. The acquisition of Smith and Haas added authors, including William Faulkner , Isak Dinesen , André Malraux , Robert Graves , and Jean de Brunhoff , who wrote
2686-551: The Canadian distributor of Random House Books. In 1986, Random House of Canada established its own indigenous Canadian publishing program that has become one of the most successful in Canadian history. Until January 2012, it used to hold a 25% stake in McClelland & Stewart , with the remaining 75% being controlled by the University of Toronto . It is now the sole owner of McClelland & Stewart. Takeda Random House Japan
2765-498: The Crown Publishing Group. According to Madeline McIntosh, chief executive of Penguin Random House U.S., the two lines "will retain their distinct editorial identities." McIntosh explained some of the motivation behind the merger in a memo to employees, writing, "Book discovery and buying patterns continue to shift, resulting in growth opportunities in the nonfiction categories in which Crown in particular already has
2844-760: The Harlem Renaissance era such as Alain Lock and Sterling Brown . Additionally, she participated in the university's theater group, known as the Howard Players, where she had the opportunity to travel the Deep South, which was a defining experience of her life. Morrison went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1955 from Cornell University in Ithaca , New York. Her master's thesis was titled " Virginia Woolf 's and William Faulkner 's treatment of
2923-750: The Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture , the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. She was honored with the National Book Foundation 's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters the same year. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 29, 2012. She received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2016. Morrison
3002-479: The Literary Imagination (1992), and explore the construction of a 'non-white Africanist presence and personae' in the works of Poe , Hawthorne , Melville , Cather and Hemingway , arguing that 'all of us are bereft when criticism remains too polite or too fearful to notice a disrupting darkness before its eyes'." Before the third novel of the Beloved Trilogy was published, Morrison was awarded
3081-546: The United States from the time of slavery to the 1920s. Random House had been uncertain about the project but its publication met with a good reception. Alvin Beam reviewed the anthology for the Cleveland Plain Dealer , writing: "Editors, like novelists, have brain children – books they think up and bring to life without putting their own names on the title page. Mrs. Morrison has one of these in
3160-631: The United States is located in Penguin Random House Tower , which was constructed in 2009 at 1745 Broadway in Manhattan . The 684-foot (210 m) building spans the west side of the block between West 55th and West 56th Streets. The building's lobby showcases floor-to-ceiling glassed-in bookcases, which are filled with books published by the company and its subsidiaries. Prior to moving to Penguin Random House Tower,
3239-467: The Well (1997) were written for Jessye Norman with music by Richard Danielpour , and, alongside Maya Angelou and Clarissa Pinkola Estés , Morrison provided the text for composer Judith Weir 's woman.life.song commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Jessye Norman, which premiered in April 2000. Morrison returned to Margaret Garner's life story, the basis of her novel Beloved , to write the libretto for
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3318-455: The alienated". She taught English, first at Texas Southern University in Houston from 1955 to 1957, and then at Howard University for the next seven years. While teaching at Howard, she met Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect, whom she married in 1958. Their first son was born in 1961 and she was pregnant with their second son when she and Harold divorced in 1964. After her divorce and
3397-455: The birth of her son Slade in 1965, Morrison began working as an editor for L. W. Singer, a textbook division of publisher Random House , in Syracuse , New York. Two years later, she transferred to Random House in New York City, where she became their first black woman senior editor in the fiction department. In that capacity, Morrison played a vital role in bringing Black literature into
3476-482: The children's audiobook publisher Listening Library, and sold its distribution division. In 2001, Phyllis E. Grann joined Random House as vice chairman. Grann was the CEO for Putnam and had grown that house from $ 10 million in revenue in 1976, to more than $ 200 million by 1993 and without increasing their title output. A publishing insider commented that then CEO Peter Olson was, "I think maybe instead of buying
3555-530: The company in Asia . Random House Home Video was a home video unit established by Random House in 1983 as Random House Video until 1988, the publisher of Dr. Seuss 's books. It was renamed in 1984. Random House's home video division was currently the distributor of some shows, such as Sesame Street (1986–1994), The Busy World of Richard Scarry (1993–2005), Arthur (1996–2006), and The Berenstain Bears ,
3634-1259: The company was headquartered at 457 Madison Avenue , 20 East 57th Street, and 201 East 50th Street, all in Manhattan. Random House, Inc. maintains several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. The Random House Group is one of the largest general book publishing companies in the United Kingdom ; it is based in London. The group comprises nine publishing companies: Cornerstone Publishing, Vintage Publishing , Ebury Publishing , Transworld Publishers , Penguin Random House Children's, Penguin Random House UK Audio, Penguin Michael Joseph, Penguin Press, and Penguin General. Its distribution business services its own imprints, as well as 40 other UK publishers through Grantham Book Services. The Random House archive and library
3713-437: The content and audience for her fiction; her desire was to create stories which could be lingered over and relished, not 'consumed and gobbled as fast food', and at the same time to ensure that these stories and their characters had a strong historical and cultural base." In 1992, Morrison also published her first book of literary criticism, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992), an examination of
3792-406: The cover of Time magazine, making her only the second female writer of fiction and second Black writer of fiction to appear on what was perhaps the most significant U.S. magazine cover of the era. Also in 1998, the movie adaptation of Beloved was released, directed by Jonathan Demme and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey , who had spent ten years bringing it to the screen. Winfrey also stars as
3871-854: The cradle of our present problems and strains, the natal curse put on us back then by the Indian tribes, Africans, Dutch, Portuguese, and English competing to get their footing in the New World against a hostile landscape and the essentially tragic nature of human experience." From 1989 until her retirement in 2006, Morrison held the Robert F. Goheen Chair in the Humanities at Princeton University . She said she did not think much of modern fiction writers who reference their own lives instead of inventing new material, and she used to tell her creative writing students, "I don't want to hear about your little life, OK?" Similarly, she chose not to write about her own life in
3950-408: The film, One Day in 2011. The company also creates story content for media including video games, social networks on the web, and mobile platforms. Random House is one of the largest English language publishers, and part of a group of publishers once known as the "Big 6" and now known as the "Big Five". In October 2012, Bertelsmann entered into talks with rival conglomerate Pearson plc , over
4029-403: The future. Morrison was also honored with the 1996 National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters , which is awarded to a writer "who has enriched our literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work". The third novel of her Beloved Trilogy, Paradise , about citizens of an all-Black town, came out in 1997. The following year, Morrison was on
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#17327939965614108-484: The landlord rather than falling into despair. Morrison later said her family's response demonstrated how to keep your integrity and claim your own life in the face of acts of such "monumental crudeness". Morrison's parents instilled in her a sense of heritage and language through telling traditional African-American folktales, ghost stories, and singing songs. She read frequently as a child; among her favorite authors were Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy . Morrison became
4187-432: The main character, Sethe, alongside Danny Glover as Sethe's lover, Paul D, and Thandiwe Newton as Beloved. The movie flopped at the box office. A review in The Economist opined that "most audiences are not eager to endure nearly three hours of a cerebral film with an original storyline featuring supernatural themes, murder, rape, and slavery". Film critic Janet Maslin , in her New York Times review "No Peace from
4266-512: The mainstream. One of the first books she worked on was the groundbreaking Contemporary African Literature (1972), a collection that included work by Nigerian writers Wole Soyinka , Chinua Achebe , and South African playwright Athol Fugard . She fostered a new generation of Afro-American writers, including poet and novelist Toni Cade Bambara , radical activist Angela Davis , Black Panther Huey Newton and novelist Gayl Jones , whose writing Morrison discovered. She also brought to publication
4345-409: The novel "reads largely like a melodrama lashed to the structural conceits of the miniseries", and that Morrison "perpetually interrupts her narrative with maudlin ideological commercials". Despite overall high acclaim, Beloved failed to win the prestigious National Book Award or the National Book Critics Circle Award . Forty-eight Black critics and writers, among them Maya Angelou , protested
4424-470: The omission in a statement that The New York Times published on January 24, 1988. "Despite the international stature of Toni Morrison, she has yet to receive the national recognition that her five major works of fiction entirely deserve", they wrote. Two months later, Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction . It also won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award . Beloved is the first of three novels about love and African-American history, sometimes called
4503-434: The parent imprint. Over the following decades, a series of acquisitions made it into one of the largest publishers in the United States. In 2013, it was merged with Penguin Group to form Penguin Random House , which is owned by the Germany -based media conglomerate Bertelsmann . Penguin Random House uses its brand for Random House Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, as well as several imprints. Random House
4582-490: The possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Random House and Penguin Group . On July 1, 2013, the merger was completed, and the new company emerged as Penguin Random House . When founded, Bertelsmann owned 53% of the joint venture while Pearson owned 47%. Pearson sold 22% of its shares to Bertelsmann in July 2017, and since April 2020, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann, making Random House division again wholly owned by German parent. At
4661-416: The power of storytelling. To make her point, she told a story. She spoke about a blind, old, Black woman who is approached by a group of young people. They demand of her, "Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that you can pass along to help us start strong? ... Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up
4740-629: The public after a semester of collaboration. Inspired by her curatorship at the Louvre Museum, Morrison returned to Princeton in the fall 2008 to lead a small seminar, also entitled "The Foreigner's Home". On November 17, 2017, Princeton University dedicated Morrison Hall (a building previously called West College) in her honor. In May 2010, Morrison appeared at PEN World Voices for a conversation with Marlene van Niekerk and Kwame Anthony Appiah about South African literature and specifically van Niekerk's 2004 novel Agaat . Morrison wrote books for children with her younger son, Slade Morrison, who
4819-624: The question 'Toni Morrison again?'... I say with certainty there would have been no Oprah's Book Club if this woman had not chosen to share her love of words with the world." Morrison called the book club a "reading revolution". Morrison continued to explore different art forms, such as providing texts for original scores of classical music. She collaborated with André Previn on the song cycle Honey and Rue , which premiered with Kathleen Battle in January 1992, and on Four Songs , premiered at Carnegie Hall with Sylvia McNair in November 1994. Both Sweet Talk: Four Songs on Text and Spirits In
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#17327939965614898-502: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Wofford . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wofford&oldid=1256892439 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists Hidden categories: Short description
4977-540: The second in its "Grand Invité" program to guest-curate a month-long series of events across the arts on the theme of "The Foreigner's Home", about which The New York Times said: "In tapping her own African-American culture, Ms. Morrison is eager to credit 'foreigners' with enriching the countries where they settle." Morrison's novel A Mercy , released in 2008, is set in the Virginia colonies of 1682. Diane Johnson , in her review in Vanity Fair , called A Mercy "a poetic, visionary, mesmerizing tale that captures, in
5056-548: The spring 2006, The New York Times Book Review named Beloved the best work of American fiction published in the previous 25 years, as chosen by a selection of prominent writers, literary critics, and editors. In his essay about the choice, "In Search of the Best", critic A. O. Scott said: "Any other outcome would have been startling since Morrison's novel has inserted itself into the American canon more completely than any of its potential rivals. With remarkable speed, 'Beloved' has, less than 20 years after its publication, become
5135-533: The stores now, and magazines and newsletters in the publishing trade are ecstatic, saying it will go like hotcakes." Morrison had begun writing fiction as part of an informal group of poets and writers at Howard University who met to discuss their work. She attended one meeting with a short story about a Black girl who longed to have blue eyes . Morrison later developed the story as her first novel, The Bluest Eye , getting up every morning at 4 am to write, while raising two children on her own. The Bluest Eye
5214-435: The time of the acquisition the combined companies controlled 25% of the book business with more than 10,000 employees and 250 independent publishing imprints and with about $ 3.9 billion in annual revenues. The move to consolidate was to provide leverage against Amazon.com and battle the shrinking state of bookstores . In October 2018, Penguin Random House merged two of its most known publishing lines, Random House and
5293-404: Was a first-generation college student . Initially a student in the drama program at Howard, she studied theatre with celebrated drama teachers Anne Cooke Reid and Owen Dodson . It was while at Howard that she encountered racially segregated restaurants and buses for the first time. She graduated in 1953 with a B.A. in English and a minor in Classics, and was able to work with key members of
5372-413: Was a joint venture with Italian publisher Mondadori (Random House Mondadori). Upon Bertelsmann's acquisition of Mondadori's stake in the JV, the name was kept temporarily four months. Some Spanish-language authors published by Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial include Roberto Bolaño , Javier Marías , Mario Vargas Llosa and Guillermo Arriaga . Random House of Canada was established in 1944 as
5451-533: Was a painter and a musician. Slade died of pancreatic cancer on December 22, 2010, aged 45, when Morrison's novel Home (2012) was half-completed. In May 2011, Morrison received an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Rutgers University–New Brunswick . During the commencement ceremony, she delivered a speech on the "pursuit of life, liberty, meaningfulness, integrity, and truth". In 2011, Morrison worked with opera director Peter Sellars and Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré on Desdemona , taking
5530-472: Was about 15 years old, a group of white people lynched two African-American businessmen who lived on his street. Morrison later said: "He never told us that he'd seen bodies. But he had seen them. And that was too traumatic, I think, for him." Soon after the lynching, George Wofford moved to the racially integrated town of Lorain, Ohio, in the hope of escaping racism and securing gainful employment in Ohio's burgeoning industrial economy. He worked odd jobs and as
5609-405: Was an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University . In 2004, Morrison was invited by Wellesley College to deliver the commencement address , which has been described as "among the greatest commencement addresses of all time and a courageous counterpoint to the entire genre". In June 2005, the University of Oxford awarded Morrison an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. In
5688-723: Was commissioned by the New York State Writers Institute at the State University of New York at Albany, where she was teaching at the time. It was produced in 1986 by Capital Repertory Theatre and directed by Gilbert Moses . Morrison was also a visiting professor at Bard College from 1986 to 1988. In 1987, Morrison published her most celebrated novel, Beloved . It was inspired by the true story of an enslaved African-American woman, Margaret Garner , whose story Morrison had discovered when compiling The Black Book . Garner had escaped slavery but
5767-497: Was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer , two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random", which suggested the name Random House. In 1934, they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce 's novel Ulysses in
5846-601: Was founded in May 2003 as a joint venture between Kodansha and Random House. In 2009, Random House discontinued the joint venture. Takeda Random House Japan filed for bankruptcy on December 14, 2012. In 2006, Random House invested in Random House Korea . In 2010, Random House divested their ownership. In April 2010, Random House Australia managing director, Margie Seale, was assigned the responsibilities of exploring and evaluating potential business opportunities for
5925-748: Was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020. Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, the second of four children from a working-class, Black family, in Lorain, Ohio , to Ramah (née Willis) and George Wofford. Her mother was born in Greenville, Alabama , and moved north with her family as a child. She was a homemaker and a devout member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church . George Wofford grew up in Cartersville, Georgia . When Wofford
6004-521: Was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor for fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her novel Beloved was made into a film in 1998. Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States and the Black American experience. The National Endowment for
6083-557: Was named editorial director for Dial Press and editor-in-chief of Random House imprints reporting to Gina Centrello, the president and publisher of the Random House Publishing Group. There were layoffs at Doubleday , now part of Knopf Publishing Group , and Dial Press , Bantam Dell . Spiegel & Grau was moved from Doubleday over to Random House. Random House also has an entertainment production arm for film and television, Random House Studio; which released
6162-504: Was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1970, when Morrison was aged 39. It was favorably reviewed in The New York Times by John Leonard , who praised Morrison's writing style as being "a prose so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry ... But The Bluest Eye is also history, sociology, folklore, nightmare and music." The novel did not sell well at first, but
6241-424: Was pursued by slave hunters. Facing a return to slavery, Garner killed her two-year-old daughter but was captured before she could kill herself. Morrison's novel imagines the dead baby returning as a ghost, Beloved, to haunt her mother and family. Beloved was a critical success and a bestseller for 25 weeks. The New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote that the scene of the mother killing her baby
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