Toni Morrison Net Worth | celebrity net worth

What was Toni Morrison’s Net Worth?

Toni Morrison was an American novelist, editor, and professor who had a net worth of $20 million at the time of her death. Toni Morrison is best known for writing historical novels such as “Song of Solomon” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Baywatch.” For her body of work, which explicitly addresses the experiences of Black Americans and the legacy of racism in America, she has also earned honors such as the Nobel Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American . Novel. Additionally, Morrison wrote some non-fiction, and co-authored children’s books with his son, Slade.

In 1970, his first novel “The Bluest Eye” was published. He was nominated for the National Book Award for “Sula”, which was published in 1973. In 1977 his novel “Song of Solomon” was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club. It was the first novel by a black author in nearly 40 years to earn the distinction and win the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1987 he published “Baywatch”. The book won the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was made into a film starring Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. In 2000, her book “The Bluest Eye” was selected for Oprah’s Book Club. Morrison was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Early life and education

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, the second of four children to Ramah and George, working-class black parents from the American South who were trying to escape racism. The answers were gone. When Morrison was a child, his family’s home was burned down by their landlord for being unable to pay the rent. Morrison was educated at Lorain High School, where he participated in drama club and debate, and served on the yearbook staff. She went on to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1953 with a BA in English. After that, Morrison enrolled in an American literature graduate program at Cornell University and earned his MA in 1955.

career start

Morrison began his career in academia, teaching English at Texas Southern University for a few years and then at his alma mater Howard University for seven years. Subsequently, in the mid-60s, she became an editor for the textbook division of the publisher Random House. Morrison became the first black female senior editor in Random House’s fiction department two years later. In that role, she was integral in bringing black writers and their works to mainstream attention.

Novel

In 1970, Morrison published her first novel, “The Bluest Eye”, about a young African-American girl growing up in the wake of the Great Depression. Her second novel, “Sula,” came out in 1973; Centering on the friendship between two black women, it was nominated for a National Book Award. Morrison had his greatest critical success to date in 1977 with his third novel, “Song of Solomon”, which chronicles the life of an African-American man living in Michigan from birth to adulthood. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, it was also selected for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. Morrison’s next novel was the contemporary-set “Tar Baby”, published in 1981.

Morrison released her most awarded novel in 1987: “Baywatch.” Inspired by the true story of enslaved African-American woman Margaret Garner, the novel was a major critical success and became a bestseller for 25 weeks. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was adapted into a film in 1998, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Oprah Winfrey. “Baywatch” became the first part of a loosely connected trilogy including “Jazz” and “Paradise”. Morrison returns to novel-writing at 21^{scheduled tribe} century for penning “Love,” “A Mercy,” and “Home.” his 11^th And the last novel, “God Help the Child,” came out in 2015.

other written work

In 1986, Morrison wrote the play “Dreaming Emmett”, about the 1955 murder of black teen Emmett Till. The play was performed at the State University of New York at Albany, where she was teaching. Later, in 1992, Morrison released her first non-fiction work, the book of literary criticism “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination”. He released a few other non-fiction works, such as “Remember: The Journey to School Integration.” Morrison later branched out into several other artistic mediums. She wrote the text for the original classical music score, wrote the libretto for the opera “Margaret Garner” and created the 2011 play “Desdemona” based on the character from Shakespeare’s “Othello”. With his son Slade, Morrison also wrote several children’s books. Titles include “The Big Box,” “The Book of Mean People,” “Peanny Butter Fudge,” and “Little Cloud and Lady Wind.”

academic career

In the early 80s, Morrison returned to academia to teach English at the State University of New York and Rutgers University. She was also a visiting professor at Bard College for a few years. From 1989 until his retirement in 2006, Morrison held the Robert F. Organized Gohain Chair. In his role, he developed the Princeton Atelier, a program bringing students together with writers and artists.

personal life and death

While teaching at Howard University, Morrison met Jamaican architect Harold Morrison, whom she married in 1958. The couple had two children, Harold Jr. and Slade, and divorced in 1964. Slade died in late 2010 from pancreatic cancer.

In August of 2019, Morrison died in New York City from complications of pneumonia. She was 88 years old.

heritage

Morrison left a long and lasting legacy as one of the most important American writers of the 20^th century. She achieved several milestones during her career, including becoming the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Morrison’s influence lives on through Oberlin College’s Toni Morrison Society, an international literary society dedicated to the scholarly research of his work; the Toni Morrison Papers, which are part of the permanent library collection at Princeton University; and through continued reading and study of his books, many of which are staples of academic curricula. She has also been the subject of several documentary films, including 2019’s “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am”.

real estate

In 2014, Tony paid $3.8 million for an apartment in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. In October 2020, his estate listed the apartment for $4.75 million.

In 2012 she sold a NYC apartment for an undisclosed amount.

In the late 1970s he bought a waterfront property in a town called Grand View-on-Hudson, 25 miles north of NYC. He paid $120,000 for the property, which is equivalent to about $500,000 in today’s dollars. The original structure was destroyed by a fire in the early 1990s. He rebuilt a large estate. Tony’s son inherited the house shortly after his death.