Writers are trouble: Toni Morrison’s insights into the power of a pen

“Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharrassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world’s resources.”
— Toni Morrison

I’ve been making my way this week through the wonderful book Toni at Random, which the American scholar Dana A. Williams published last year. It’s about Morrison’s long and productive career at Random House, and her impressive work as an editor and champion for Black voices.

I had been aware that Morrison had a career in book publishing, but I have to confess an assumption that this was a bit of a day job, one that allowed her to work on her novels.

Williams’s book shows — again and again — how much effort, thought and sweat Morrison put into her book projects, from encouraging and/or challenging writers and fighting for her goals inside the publishing industry.

She had a vision, and she was also picky: a book nerd like me will respond to her very precise notes for designers and marketing staff on the fine details of making a book look good and take off.

The quote above comes from a book that Morrison edited later in her career: Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word, which was published in 2009.

PEN America was a cause close to her heart. One wonders what Morrison, who was 88 when she died in 2019, would make of the subsequent years, where PEN has charted accelerating growth of book bans and censorship.

A PEN report earlier this year found, chillingly, found that 44 per cent of challenged titles involve characters who are people of colour, the largest percentage ever charted.

I’ve been inspired by reading Toni at Random, and have made notes of other things to read — not just by herself, but by writers (Toni Cade Bambara, for one) that she championed. My list of things-to-read continues to grow, but I know there’s rich reading ahead.

As for censorship, that’s an issue that can never be discounted. Morrison did the right thing, over and over, by finding authors whose voices deserved to be heard. Were that the publishing industry, such as it now is, had more of that relentless drive and clarity.