The University of Virginia Press has released what could be Toni Morrison’s last book. The Nobel Prize-winning author died in August, but, this final publication could influence our future.
The book Goodness and the Literary Imagination began with a lecture Toni Morrison gave at Harvard in 2012. Her friend and colleague – David Carrasco – had proposed its publication – along with essays by scholars of religion who have read and learned from the author. She says, for example, that our culture pays too much attention to evil.
“She talks about how evil is a blockbuster, and goodness lurks backstage, and she wanted to explore why that was,” he says.
Carrasco predicts Morrison’s death will bring new discussion and new readers to her work while helping to counter prejudice against African-Americans and Latin-X people:
“You have Morrison writing again and again about the struggles that these people who are underdogs – what they go through, how they struggle within themselves, how they survive, and she presents these narrative stories – these stories that anybody can identify with.”
And, he says, Morrison’s work helps us to understand the country we live in today, how we might improve our democracy and move forward.
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