The Library is saddened by the loss of Toni Morrison, author and New York Public Library Lifetime Trustee. After being named a Library Lion in 1982, Toni joined our Board in 1985 and was named a Life Trustee in 2006. Throughout this time, she was an impassioned champion of our work. In 2016, she dedicated a bench to the Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in honor of its role archiving, preserving, and sharing the Black experience.

"The New York Public Library is deeply saddened to hear of the loss of Toni Morrison, our dear friend and a cherished member of the Library family," said NYPL President Anthony W. Marx. "Toni was a beautiful, brave writer who transformed our culture and inspired generations of readers and writers. A Nobel Laureate, leader, and impassioned supporter of The New York Public Library, Toni’s legacy will live on in our hearts and minds, as well as on our shelves, where countless writers continue the work she began. Losing Toni Morrison at this moment in history is devastating. We will miss her amazing spirit, insight, wisdom, and friendship and we will treasure her corpus all the more. We are so grateful for all that she gave the world. Thank you, Toni."

Morrison, born in 1931, was one of the most highly celebrated American novelists of the latter 20th century and an icon of Black literature and thought. Morrison has written 11 novels over the course of her near-50-year career and has received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Nobel Prize in Literature, PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition she has authored a wide variety of short fiction, nonfiction, and theatre.

Her novel Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1988. Learn more about Beloved and her other work. Morrison's conversation with Angela Davis at the Library was recorded for the Library's podcast. Listen now.

Morrison’s legacy will continue to live on in her remarkable works. For these and her other powerful contributions, we express our thanks.