Podcasts · Secret Life of Books
Saved from Fire: the Toni Morrison Archives
· 37 min · Episode 128
Episode Saved from Fire: the Toni Morrison Archives
As part of our series on the writing of Toni Morrison we’re lucky enough to record a conversation with one of the world’s leading Toni Morrison scholars, Professor Autumn Womack. Autumn has spent more time with the Morrison Papers at Princeton University than pretty much anyone else – except (maybe) Morrison herself.
Autumn describes the experience of coming to Morrison’s writing for the first time in high school, returning to it years later to her as a graduate student and finally getting to teach Morrison's novels at Princeton, where Morrison spent the last years of her writing life. We hear about the fire that nearly destroyed all Morrison's records, and the librarians who saved her papers.
Autumn explains why archives are anything but boring – and how some discoveries she and her students made can change the way we read Morrison’s great novels.
More about Autumn and her work
https://english.princeton.edu/people/autumn-womack
An essay Autumn mentions: “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation” (1984)
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