Deborah Feingold/Corbis via Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Toni Morrison, the renowned author best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved,” died Monday night, her publicist and family confirmed Tuesday.
Morrison had been at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York at the time of her death, according to her publicist. She was 88.
The cause of death was not immediately clear, but her family said she had “a short illness.”
“She was an extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt who reveled in being with her family and friends,” the Morrison family said in a statement. “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.”
“While we would like to thank everyone who knew and loved her, personally or through her work, for their support at this difficult time, we ask for privacy as we mourn this loss to our family. We will share information in the near future about how we will celebrate Toni’s incredible life,” the statement added.
Morrison’s decades-long writing career spanned from 1970 to 2017, including treasured novels The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon.
Her work delved into the black experience in America, specifically that of black women in the country.
Among her plethora of accolades, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for Beloved and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Morrison was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama in 2012.
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