Toni Morrison has been announced as the winner of the 2016 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. In honour of this, for today’s Sunday Read we’ve collected some insightful and circumspect writing advice from the American icon.
The PEN/Saul Bellow Award, which was judged this year by Louise Erdrich – who won the award in 2014 – Dinaw Mengestu and Francine Prose, goes to a “living American author whose scale of achievement in fiction, over a sustained career, places him or her in the highest rank of American literature”, and is worth $25 000 (about R384 000).
Past winners of the award include Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, EL Doctorow and Louise Erdrich.
The judges called Morrison’s work “revelatory, intelligent, bold”.
Read the judge’s citation:
The works of Chloe Anthony Wofford, better known as Toni Morrison, have changed the landscape of American fiction. Revelatory, intelligent, bold, her fiction is invested in the black experience, in black lives, and in black consciousness, material from which she has forged a singular American aesthetic.
Toni Morrison not only opened doors to others when she began to publish, she has also stayed grounded in the issues of her time. At every turn, she has commented upon and enlarged the conversation about what it is to be black, female, human, universal. Her brilliant and bracing fiction continues to address what is crucial, timely and timeless.
For her enduring command of her art, the judges take great pleasure in awarding Toni Morrison The Saul Bellow Prize for American Fiction 2016.”
Writing advice from Toni Morrison
Where to write
I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?
Writing inspiration
Everything I see or do, the weather and the water, buildings … everything actual is an advantage when I am writing. It is like a menu, or a giant tool box, and I can pick and choose what I want. When I am not writing, or more important, when I have nothing on my mind for a book, then I see chaos, confusion, disorder.
Finding ideas
Sometimes ideas arrive through reading contradictory things in history books or newspapers; sometimes it’s a response or reaction to current events. But that only explains where some of the themes come from. I can’t explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn’t really be a writer.
Writing character
Think of somebody you don’t know. What about a Mexican waitress in the Rio Grande who can barely speak English? Or what about a Grande Madame in Paris? Things way outside their camp. Imagine it, create it. Don’t record and editorialize on some event that you’ve already lived through. I was always amazed at how effective that was.
Guiding the reader
I try really hard, even if there’s a minor character, to hear their memorable lines. They really do float over your head when you’re writing them, like ghosts or living people. I don’t describe them very much, just broad strokes. You don’t know necessarily how tall they are, because I don’t want to force the reader into seeing what I see. It’s like listening to the radio as a kid. I had to help, as a listener, put in all of the details. It said “blue,” and I had to figure out what shade. Or if they said it was one way, I had to see it. It’s a participatory thing.
Revising
Well, those that need reworking I do as long as I can. I mean I’ve revised six times, seven times, thirteen times. But there’s a line between revision and fretting, just working it to death. It is important to know when you are fretting it; when you are fretting it because it is not working, it needs to be scrapped.
Whether writing can be taught
I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can’t expect to teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort. [...] I don’t want to hear whining about how it’s so difficult. Oh, I don’t tolerate any of that because most of the people who’ve ever written are under enormous duress, myself being one them. So whining about how they can’t get it is ridiculous.
Listen to Morrison’s acceptance speech for the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature:
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Book details
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
EAN: 9780099759911
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- Sula by Toni Morrison
EAN: 9780099760016
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- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
EAN: 9780099768418
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- Beloved by Toni Morrison
EAN: 9780099760115
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- God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
EAN: 9780701186050
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Image courtesy or Ray Cornelius