By Elizabeth Cali<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December 1973, New York Times <\/em>critic Sara Blackburn published a now infamous review of Toni Morrison\u2019s second novel, Sula<\/em>. After extolling Morrison\u2019s fiction writing capabilities, Blackburn posited that Morrison was far too talented to limit her subject matter to African American lives and cultures \u2013 or, what Blackburn referred to as \u201cthe black side of provincial American life.\u201d The question was implied: when would this talented author write about white people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1975, during the Black Studies Center public dialogue at Portland State, Morrison theorized her novelistic focus on African American people and their cultures in her writing. While she never explicitly refers to Blackburn\u2019s review in her comments, this is one of her clearest explanations of the significance of writing for Black readers, about Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, despite Morrison\u2019s explanation, the implied question \u2013 when will she write about white people? – became both overt and repetitious during Morrison\u2019s illustrious career. In two particularly well recorded instances in 1998, 60 Minutes<\/em> lead Charlie Rose and Australian Uncensored <\/em>interviewer Jana Wendt both asked Morrison when and if she will ever write about white people. By that time, Morrison had published six novels and had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Elizabeth Cali In December 1973, New York Times critic Sara Blackburn published a now infamous review of Toni Morrison\u2019s second novel, Sula. After extolling Morrison\u2019s fiction writing capabilities, Blackburn posited that Morrison was far too talented to limit her subject matter to African American lives and cultures \u2013 or, what Blackburn referred to as … The question white folks could not stop asking Toni Morrison<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sb_is_suggestion_mode":false,"_sb_show_suggestion_boards":false,"_sb_show_comment_boards":false,"_sb_suggestion_history":"","_sb_update_block_changes":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-literary-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/briefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}