# "On Morrison": a conversation with Namwali Serpell

An episode of [Secret Life of Books](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1755803199), 21 Mar 2026, 40 min.

Audio: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/679c3267811ecd43a9f19b7a/e/69bd7ad162f6c66afebb0dbd/media.mp3

To close out our popular series on the great American novelist Toni Morrison, SLOB brings listeners a wonderful discussion with the novelist and Harvard literature Professor Namwali Serpell. Namwali is in the middle of book tour, having just published her highly acclaimed book of essays, "On Morrison," which garnered national and international attention for offering new ways to read and appreciate one of America's most important writers. "On Morrison" is based on a class Namwali has been teaching for several years to her undergraduates at Harvard, in which they read many of Morrison's novels over the course of a single semester. In this conversation we talk about why Toni Morrison's novels became instant classics, why it really matters that her writing is often so difficult, what Namwali's experiences teaching Morrison in the classroom shows us about how we can address the reading crisis around the world, and how (as ever) classic literature especially offers us crucial ways forward. Namwali Serpell, "On Morrison." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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