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Oprah Winfrey Praises Toni Morrison At Manhattan Dinner Gala

NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey was in town to praise one of her idols, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.

 

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BEVERLY HILLS, CA - NOVEMBER 05: Oprah Winfrey speaks onstage at the Ambassadors For Humanity Gala Benefiting USC Shoah Foundation Honoring Rita Wilson And Tom Hanks at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on November 5, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

 

"It's impossible to actually imagine the American literary landscape without a Toni Morrison," Winfrey said Tuesday night during a dinner gala in downtown Manhattan hosted by the Center for Fiction, which named Morrison the winner of a lifetime achievement award. "She is our conscience, she is our seer, she is our truth-teller."

 

FRANCE-USA-FESTIVAL-LITERATURE
US author Toni Morrison (C) poses with her 1977 novel entitled "Song of Solomon" on September 21, 2012 during a reception sponsored by the US ambassador Charles H. Rivkin (R) at his residence in Paris, as part of the 10th America Festival. The America Festival is a cultural event held in France every two years which gathers well-known figures from the world of literature, music and cinema. AFP PHOTO / PATRICK KOVARIK (Photo credit should read PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/GettyImages)

 

The 87-year-old Morrison was unable to attend, but she and her longtime publisher Alfred A. Knopf were the evening's clear guests of honor.

 

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 29: Novelist Toni Morrison is presented with a Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Barack Obama during an East Room event May 29, 2012 at the White House in Washington, DC. The Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, is presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

 

The Center for Fiction, a nonprofit which supports the reading and writing of literature, also gave a lifetime achievement prize to Alfred A. Knopf Editor-in-Chief Sonny Mehta. And an award for best first novel was given to Knopf author Tommy Orange for "There There." The event also featured a brief clip from the upcoming documentary "Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am," which premieres next month at the Sundance Film Festival.

Winfrey and Morrison have known each other for more than 20 years, dating back to when Winfrey was so determined to learn the author's unlisted phone number that she called the local fire department. When Winfrey started her book club, in 1996, she was thinking of Morrison. She considered making one of her books the first pick, but wondered if "the audience was ready."

 

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WINDSOR, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 19: Oprah Winfrey arrives at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle before the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Ian West - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

 

After choosing Jacquelyn Mitchard's "The Deep End of the Ocean," Winfrey turned to a personal favorite, Morrison's "Song of Solomon," a novel that each time she reads, she "finds surprises on every page — a turn of phrase, or a sentence that's so good you just want to spoon-feed every word to yourself."

Winfrey has since made Morrison an unofficial laureate of her book club, choosing her work a record four times, with later selections including the novels "Sula," ''The Bluest Eye" and "Paradise."

 

Art & Social Activism, a Discussion on Broadway With Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toni Morrison and Sonia Sanchez
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 15: Toni Morrison attends Art & Social Activism, a discussion on Broadway with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toni Morrison and Sonia Sanchez on June 15, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for The Stella Adler Studio of Acting)

 

On Tuesday night, she said Morrison shows both intellect and a "primal" power in how she "both receives and reflects out pain: The pain of being a woman, the pain of being a young brown girl obsessed with having blue eyes, the pain of yearning to be someone you're not, the pain of loving a man who's not worth it, or losing a man who is. The pain of our history."

Morrison is "the empress supreme of doing language," Winfrey said. "And I'm here tonight simply to say ... Long. May. She. Reign."

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