A Year After Toni Morrison's Death, Her Visions Of Love Stay With Us
Love is central to the work of Toni Morrison — she brought love to her examinations of Black life, and love itself was her enduring subject. But love isn't always a good or joyous thing in her work.
I've been thinking a lot about love lately. How the pandemic has forced us away from friends, families and significant others, forced us to make compromises in when and how we see each other. What does love mean under such perilous conditions? How does it actually work?
In thinking about love, I've also thought about Toni Morrison. As we mark a year since her death, I've thought about how that word defined her work above all else.
Through Toni Morrison, I first found a love for language, not only for how it's written, but how it's spoken. Think of her opening line in the 1992 novel : "Sth, I know that woman."
