Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison’s Papers Find a Home at Princeton


The papers of Toni Morrison | Don Skemer, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

The papers of Toni Morrison | Don Skemer, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

During Princeton University‘s “Coming Back: Reconnecting Princeton’s Black Alumni” conference last week, President Christopher L. Eisgruber announced that the papers of Toni Morrison have found a permanent home in the collections of Firestone Library. The collection includes manuscripts and drafts of Morrison’s novels The Bluest Eye, BelovedSong of Solomon and more, and will join other important works in the Manuscript Division of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

Morrison served on the Princeton faculty for 17 years from 1989 to 1996. A year before joining the Princeton staff, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Beloved and then became the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993. At Commencement in 2013, she was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the University.

An exhibit of the author’s papers, which also includes correspondences, lyrics, lectures, photographs, and more, will be on display now through Monday, November 24th in the Main Gallery of Firestone Library. The manuscript of Morrison’s forthcoming novel is expected to join the collection in the near future.