Word: morrison
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...happy that I had a real book idea in progress," she says of the beleaguered period following the announcement. "If I hadn't, I would have thought, 'Uh-oh, can I ever write a novel again?'" At that moment, deluged by congratulations, invitations and preparations, never mind another novel, Morrison found herself stymied by her acceptance speech. She had no free time to work on it, and when she stole some, she produced nothing she liked. "I called someone at the Nobel Committee," she remembers, "and I said, 'Look, if you're going to keep giving prizes to women...
...friend, the designer Bill Blass, rescued her, taking her into his fitting rooms and outfitting her for her appearance at the awards ceremony in Stockholm. More than four years later, Morrison still grows dreamy and wide-eyed at her introduction to haute couture. "They had everything; they had all these people around trying to make something work...
...Morrison has learned since, of course, that the Nobel Prize carries burdens somewhat heavier than the problem of what to wear to the celebration. Although every writer drifts into daydreams of winning the prize, actually having it can produce some nightmarish side effects. A crushing mantle of gravitas descends on the winners...
People honored for making up stories or poems or plays are then expected to make pronouncements, in front of packed houses, on public issues. As an African-American woman, Morrison has faced such expectations constantly. "Most of the questions I get after readings or talks," she says, "are anthropological or sociological or political. They are not about literary concerns...
...African-American woman, Morrison knew that some people would believe, even if they wouldn't say it out loud, that the notoriously inconsistent Swedish committee, often swayed by geopolitical rather than literary criteria, had given her the prize because of what she was rather than what she wrote. But Morrison shrugs off these suspicions, which have accompanied every upward step of her career. "When I heard I'd won," she says, "you heard no 'Aw, shucks' from me. The prize didn't change my inner assessment of what I'm capable of doing, but I welcomed it as a public...