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Pulitzer Prize-winning author and beloved public intellectual Toni Morrison died Monday night at age 88, surrounded by friends and family after a “short illness.” As the news broke on Tuesday morning, writers, activists, politicians, artists, and celebrities mourned the loss of Morrison, who chronicled the experience of black women and families in post-Civil War America like no other author had before. In addition to the Pulitzer, Morrison was the first black woman of any nationality to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Committee described her as an author who “gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” Below, some of the moving tributes to Morrison:
