The U.S. Postal Service will honor author Toni Morrison with a Forever stamp. Known for such books as “The Bluest Eye,” “Song of Solomon” and “Beloved,” Morrison was the rare author who achieved both bestseller status and critical success.
The stamp features a photo of Morrison taken in 2000.
The first-day-of-issue event for the Toni Morrison Forever stamp is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtag #ToniMorrisonStamp.
Eager to write the sort of novels she had always wanted to find on bookshelves, Toni Morrison (1931-2019) explored African Americans’ diverse voices and multifaceted experiences.
Morrison published her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” in 1970. An important inquiry into the life of an 11-year-old African American girl struggling with the internalization of negative racial stereotypes, the book remains a canonical novel about society’s neglect and mistreatment of African American girls.
Morrison did not shy away from difficult subjects. Her 1977 national bestseller, “Song of Solomon,” examined the many ways that the African American search for identity, both individually and collectively, is complicated by the legacy of slavery. In 1987, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for “Beloved,” a harrowing rumination on trauma and the lingering, even haunting nature of the past. “Beloved” firmly secured Morrison’s reputation as a great American writer, making her the rare author to achieve both bestseller status and critical success.
In 1989, Morrison became the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. In 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first African American woman to receive the distinction.
In later novels, Morrison further explored wide-ranging questions about the effects of social change on families and communities, skin-color prejudice among African Americans, and the lingering impact of violence and abuse. As she continued experimenting with language and pushing the possibilities of narrative, she never wavered from her purpose: bringing attention to important stories that had too long gone untold.
Art director Ethel Kessler designed this stamp with a photograph by Deborah Feingold.
The Toni Morrison stamp is being issued as a Forever stamp. It will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.