Toni Morrison

:00:03. > :00:13.symptoms take a month to develop. Now on BBC News it's time for

:00:13. > :00:17.

:00:17. > :00:25.Talking Books. I am an Razia Iqbal. My guest is Toni Morrison. And I

:00:25. > :00:32.caught up with her at American Academy in Rome. She won the Nobel

:00:32. > :00:41.Prize for literature in 1993. Her novels chronicle African-American

:00:41. > :00:47.history. Her first book, The Bluest Eye to her achievement -- crowning

:00:47. > :00:57.achievement, the lover. For her, all good art is political. -- be

:00:57. > :01:05.

:01:05. > :01:11.love it. She is vocal about Toni Morrison, will come to Talking

:01:11. > :01:16.Books. Thank you. You are widely acknowledged as one of America's

:01:16. > :01:24.greatest writers but you constantly define yourself as a black American

:01:24. > :01:29.writer. It is less important now but it was very important when I

:01:29. > :01:34.started because African-American writers were not riding -- hiding

:01:34. > :01:42.from the fact but they had a different kind of aggression about

:01:42. > :01:46.the white gays. James Baldwin, rough Addison, those men were

:01:46. > :01:53.confronting the white world and they took a different stance. When

:01:53. > :01:58.I began to write, there was a complaint - are you saying that you

:01:58. > :02:04.are an African American black writer? And I said, yes. I was very

:02:04. > :02:10.aggressive about it because I did not want them to disregard not only

:02:10. > :02:13.the subject-matter but my own ethnicity and race. Is there a

:02:13. > :02:18.problem in one of the criticism made very early on that even before

:02:18. > :02:23.you work gets out of the gate, it is already taken as representative

:02:23. > :02:30.of gender or race. The novels can be perceived as socio-political

:02:30. > :02:34.statements rather than works of fiction? Always. There was a

:02:34. > :02:39.controversy about placement of books in bookstores and some black

:02:39. > :02:46.writers wanted their own section and others wanted to be out for the

:02:46. > :02:51.tyres, distributed, and the women wanted it in the same way - they

:02:51. > :02:59.wanted a woman section, a feminist section and others did not. And

:02:59. > :03:09.that effort to be individual and part of is always going to be there.

:03:09. > :03:10.

:03:10. > :03:15.I think. Particularly in of writing because I write out of the African-

:03:15. > :03:20.American culture always. It is what I am interested in. So interested

:03:20. > :03:28.in that I'm making a point not just for writing purposes but there are

:03:28. > :03:35.no major white men in any of my books. When I first realised it, it

:03:35. > :03:42.was because it gave me such freedom. I do not have to deal with that and

:03:42. > :03:52.also, I do not function of all right or riven leave through the

:03:52. > :03:57.lens of the master. I do not look not interest to me. They are

:03:57. > :04:02.created by the master, the white male or female as the case might be.

:04:02. > :04:09.A one to take you back in your childhood, you grew up in Ohio. Was

:04:09. > :04:18.their social and racial division? Was the class? Poverty. No class

:04:18. > :04:24.differences. I was in a very small working close down, and steel mills.

:04:24. > :04:28.Many people, particularly from Eastern Europe, from Italy, from

:04:28. > :04:34.Mexico and African-Americans came to this town. We had one thing in

:04:34. > :04:41.common which we were up Paul. And the other thing, busily the racial

:04:41. > :04:48.difference, we had one high school. I had neighbours who were from all

:04:48. > :04:53.over the world where I lived. Now, the differences were created, as

:04:53. > :04:59.they say, on Sunday because there were 2000 churches. There were nine

:04:59. > :05:04.different Catholic churches, four different black churches, also,

:05:04. > :05:08.that was the separation was religious but otherwise, no. I was

:05:08. > :05:14.stunned when I left the town to see what the world was really like.

:05:14. > :05:20.Stunned. What were your perceptions when you first left? My mother and

:05:20. > :05:27.father were both born in the south and they had stories, although they

:05:27. > :05:34.left as very young people. But in Washington, where a first move to

:05:34. > :05:39.South, I saw the signs - coloured, white, all those things on the bus

:05:39. > :05:48.and there were places where you could not go to, downtown, big

:05:48. > :05:53.department stores - Ladies' Room, no. Institution like segregation.

:05:53. > :05:58.You non-fiction essays, used right up of different approaches to

:05:58. > :06:07.dealing with being black in a white world. Your grandparents and your

:06:07. > :06:11.parents, in what ways do their thinking inform you? I was very

:06:11. > :06:17.impressed... I was impressed with all of their reactions. The strong

:06:17. > :06:26.as was my father, who would not let white people in the house. White

:06:26. > :06:30.people being neighbours, unless they were children. And he thought

:06:30. > :06:35.they would never change, nothing would ever change. And I realised

:06:35. > :06:42.very much later, there when he was 13 years old in in Georgia, he had

:06:42. > :06:49.seen at two men, businessmen, shop owners, and lynched on his street,

:06:49. > :06:57.so that is when he left and it made an enormous impression. My mother,

:06:57. > :07:02.on the other hand, judge people one by one. She had no ideological or

:07:02. > :07:09.racial or anything. My grandparents were, of course, different. They

:07:09. > :07:19.left under duress. When homes are being taken and evacuated and they

:07:19. > :07:20.

:07:20. > :07:23.came north. There is one interesting story, they went to

:07:23. > :07:30.industrial places where there was work and they sent my mother and

:07:30. > :07:38.her sister to school and the teacher did not know a long

:07:38. > :07:43.division so my grandmother said, we have to move. You know, that had

:07:43. > :07:48.little teenage teachers back in the day. Soap we moved to Bahrain and

:07:48. > :07:53.that is where they lived. How would you describe your formation of your

:07:53. > :07:55.nation of identity of being a black American woman based on what your

:07:56. > :08:05.parents have taught shoot - the different approaches they had

:08:05. > :08:10.taken? I dissociated myself for a long time. It was only very much

:08:10. > :08:16.later, when I was in my 30s and 40s that I began to shake it. For me in

:08:16. > :08:24.the beginning, as a child, and as a teenager even, that was all

:08:24. > :08:29.theatrical to me. I thought it was... They could not mean that.

:08:29. > :08:33.No-one is born that way. What are they talking about. How expensive

:08:33. > :08:39.it is to have to found turns instead of one. It was almost like

:08:39. > :08:46.it was a joke. I'm sorry to say. But that was my attitude about it

:08:46. > :08:50.until later. When I actually toured the South and East BSO distinctive

:08:50. > :08:59.differences. I was never in a threatening situation like my

:08:59. > :09:05.parents. I could play it off. Once I was in college and graduate

:09:05. > :09:10.school, other things and, I grew up - that's all I wanted to say.

:09:10. > :09:16.wrote your first novel what he were an editor in at Random House, The

:09:16. > :09:20.Bluest Eye. What prompted you to write the book? The prompt was the

:09:20. > :09:26.screaming of how beautiful black people were. Black is beautiful. My

:09:26. > :09:31.black queen. And I thought, by Amina, before we will get

:09:31. > :09:37.beautiful,, so we are beautiful, he said we were not? It was not ours.

:09:37. > :09:44.But then I remembered the incident with a childhood friend of mine, we

:09:44. > :09:50.were about 10 or 11, and we were fussing about the existence of God.

:09:50. > :09:56.And I said he'd certainly did exist and she said he did not and she had

:09:56. > :10:04.proved and the proof was that she had prayed for blue eyes for two

:10:04. > :10:10.years and he had not delivered. When you 19, that is very important.

:10:10. > :10:15.A black girl? Very black, very black skin. I looked at her and for

:10:15. > :10:20.the first time I saw two things - one, it would be grotesque if she

:10:21. > :10:27.got them. If the Lord had answered her prayers. And the other thing

:10:27. > :10:32.was, she is beautiful. You know, and nine he did not think of beauty.

:10:32. > :10:42.You think he was cute. But real beauty. And that shocked me a

:10:42. > :10:42.

:10:42. > :10:48.little bit. When I started to write, when I was still actually teaching

:10:48. > :10:52.at Haward, then I put it down for ever, this tiny story and picked up

:10:52. > :10:59.again when I went to Random House. By that time, it symbolised the me

:10:59. > :11:06.what I wanted to say about self- loathing and about how it hurts and

:11:06. > :11:15.can destroy people. You know, it comes freely from within the group

:11:15. > :11:18.as well as the pervasive racism from outside. -- it comes up

:11:18. > :11:27.frequently. When you take any anything you have to constantly

:11:27. > :11:32.defend everything - he looks, your head, you're being. That is

:11:32. > :11:36.crushing. What else can you do. That is where all your energy is.

:11:37. > :11:42.Your first three novels, they do not have anything to do with the

:11:42. > :11:48.white world. It is there, it is a condition, it is an oppression, but

:11:48. > :11:52.the characters have to work out for themselves in that way they are and

:11:52. > :11:58.who they are, you have felt -- forcing the reader to do the same

:11:58. > :12:05.thing. I wake of saying, I'm black, so I have to behave in a certain

:12:05. > :12:11.way. It is simple. You humanise the population in the text, in the book.

:12:11. > :12:17.So there is a connection. I didn't want that, I'm reading about a

:12:17. > :12:26.black person therefore I have to have either sympathy or understand.

:12:26. > :12:30.I could write about terrible black people. My job is simply to

:12:30. > :12:35.represent them are well. I do not judge them. The reader can. I am

:12:35. > :12:41.not there to say this is a good person and this is a bad one.

:12:41. > :12:44.that context of judgement, let's talk about the Lovat which ground

:12:44. > :12:49.to reputation. It won the Pulitzer Prize and it takes place mainly

:12:49. > :12:54.after the emancipation of slaves and it is the story of a woman who

:12:54. > :12:59.chooses to slash the throat of her child rather than see the child and

:12:59. > :13:02.slaved and the ghost of the child then haunts her. What is

:13:03. > :13:08.extraordinary to me in reading the book is that you do not seem to

:13:08. > :13:13.make a judgement about that Act. No. I wonder whether you can say

:13:13. > :13:19.something about that because the consequences of what she does do

:13:19. > :13:26.condemn her. Why do you choose not to make a judgement? It is based on

:13:26. > :13:31.a real story. They had a child, and abolitionists wanted had tried for

:13:31. > :13:37.murder. But that would mean that she was responsible for her

:13:38. > :13:41.children. The slave owners wanted her tried for theft. Which meant

:13:41. > :13:47.she had nothing to do with them. At the time, I remember somebody

:13:47. > :13:53.saying, it was the right thing to do, killing her children but she

:13:53. > :13:59.had no right to do it. And I could not make up my mind about that.

:13:59. > :14:03.Until, the ghost appeared. I said, the only person who could make that

:14:03. > :14:08.judgement about whether there was a good or bad thing was the girl she

:14:08. > :14:13.killed. She would decide whether it was good or bad. So that lifted the

:14:14. > :14:18.whole thing up for me. Once I was able to incorporate theoretically

:14:18. > :14:28.her daughter, whether she is a ghost or a real person was murky.

:14:28. > :14:36.

:14:36. > :14:45.This is clearly an allegory to do with America's shame of its history.

:14:45. > :14:55.This book is now led by high-school students. Has this history now been

:14:55. > :14:55.

:14:55. > :15:00.confronted by a larger society? it has been apologised for her and

:15:00. > :15:06.disappear. Not among scholars or intelligence people. It is required

:15:06. > :15:11.reading in almost every college course. There is time of literary

:15:11. > :15:18.criticism on it for all sorts of reasons. I think it is spreading

:15:18. > :15:28.but it may be unwise for me to remark on mates impact during the

:15:28. > :15:29.

:15:29. > :15:36.political season, during the campaigns. Because that cancer

:15:36. > :15:45.which is latent in America, which is racism, can recur at any moment.

:15:45. > :15:50.There is no cure except time and generations. Time and generations.

:15:50. > :15:54.This generation of young people are not interested. They are like I was

:15:54. > :16:01.when I went to college. And they don't want to hear about it, they

:16:01. > :16:09.don't understand what you're talking about. And there are more

:16:09. > :16:15.mixed race... The culture they are exposed to Sikhs with African music

:16:15. > :16:21.-- African-American music, song, dance, everything. They are not

:16:21. > :16:27.uncomfortable, they are not afraid. It is not bother to them. I am

:16:27. > :16:32.aware of the parts that this has not worked with. The older

:16:33. > :16:38.generations were really terrified of a black man being in charge. A

:16:38. > :16:44.smart black man being in charge. A dumb one they could handle, but

:16:44. > :16:49.they've really smart one... There are so many vile, racist and truly

:16:49. > :16:53.disgusting things that people say about President Barack Obama. I

:16:54. > :16:58.always say, you wanna oh, I wonder what it would have been like if he

:16:58. > :17:07.had won the presidency and his mother from cancers and his

:17:07. > :17:12.grandmother from Kansas were two white people -- those two white

:17:12. > :17:20.people, were alive and living in the White House. I wonder what the

:17:20. > :17:25.language would be. Do you feel it is your duty to unearth things? So

:17:25. > :17:30.much of what to write his about historical moments. What is the

:17:30. > :17:35.impulse to do that as opposed to writing a novel set in contemporary

:17:35. > :17:41.times? Because we have seen historic moments in the election of

:17:41. > :17:50.President Obama. Is that something you have conceded all would like to

:17:50. > :17:55.try? Yes. I am playing around with it on paper, as they say. It is

:17:55. > :18:01.very, very hard. The story is difficult for a number of reasons,

:18:01. > :18:05.one of which is that one of the main characters is an intellectual.

:18:05. > :18:13.I have never written about an intellectual before. The other is

:18:13. > :18:20.that I don't fully understand the contemporary world. I don't have

:18:20. > :18:26.that hook. And we'll get it, though. But it is very hard, I have to tell

:18:26. > :18:31.you. When you won the Nobel Prize in 1993, he said he felt pound to

:18:31. > :18:36.be an American. I read your acceptance speech again. And I

:18:36. > :18:42.wondered about that sentiment because it was echoed when a

:18:42. > :18:47.Michelle Obama said, in 2008, when her husband received the nomination,

:18:47. > :18:54.that for the first time she felt proud to be an American. Had you

:18:54. > :18:59.been ashamed to be an American before that? (LAUGHS). It is

:18:59. > :19:03.troubling. As soon as you leave America, you keep wondering, what

:19:03. > :19:09.are they doing? No matter what happens in the rest of the world

:19:09. > :19:14.which may be deplorable, it took 200 years for people in the US to

:19:14. > :19:20.figure it out and they still haven't done it. They do really sad

:19:20. > :19:28.things. The warmongers who never think twice. The predators.

:19:28. > :19:38.Capitalism is all right but not predatory capitalism. Raul Crete

:19:38. > :19:41.

:19:41. > :19:48.and that. I get disturbed. -- raw greed and theft. But in 1993, when

:19:48. > :19:58.I won the Nobel Prize, I thought, "I am an American". It was the same

:19:58. > :20:06.as when a farmer got elected. When -- a bar, got elected. -- President

:20:06. > :20:12.Obama got elected. I always thought the American flag and those

:20:12. > :20:20.marching parade square ugly. But when he got elected, I thought,

:20:20. > :20:27."that is a nice song. You get there is Marines..." but it was very

:20:28. > :20:34.profound. I belonged in the country. I belonged. Nothing mattered, this

:20:34. > :20:40.was my home. Now, I have been saying that all my life. In all of

:20:40. > :20:46.my books. It is all about us and home. That was the first time I

:20:46. > :20:49.felt that emotionally. I was totally unprepared for it. I was

:20:49. > :20:58.happy Andy Kerr about the election and so on and about Michelle Obama

:20:58. > :21:03.and about him. But I wasn't emotionally engaged. Intellectually,

:21:03. > :21:08.I was, but this was something different. What does your gut tell

:21:08. > :21:15.you about whether the fault lines decadesr

:21:15. > :21:21.decades, whether they have changed since his presidency? Somehow. Some

:21:21. > :21:26.have solidified. I wonder if you are referring to the kind of

:21:26. > :21:36.undercurrent, the language of racism that you have talked about,

:21:36. > :21:36.

:21:36. > :21:39.where people doubt that he is in fact an American. (LAUGHS). And it

:21:39. > :21:48.is to do with the political rhetoric and the discourse that is

:21:48. > :21:52.taking place. That he is a stranger, he is not us, he does not belong.

:21:52. > :21:59.That is what they are saying. And that is about everything that the

:22:00. > :22:03.opposition does. And what they're seeing is the thing that we used to

:22:03. > :22:13.say in Vietnam. We burned the village in order to save it. They

:22:13. > :22:15.

:22:15. > :22:21.are willing to crash the country in order to have him out. And why him?

:22:21. > :22:28.It seems that on one level, you're saying that very little has changed.

:22:28. > :22:37.And that this fault line of race in America is so deep that there is

:22:37. > :22:43.not enough understanding to Bridget. Is that right? Not yet. I would

:22:43. > :22:50.have said when the President was elected that these lines were

:22:50. > :22:55.closing but now, it seems like they are deeper. People around it are

:22:55. > :23:05.shooting... I heard, I don't know if it is true, he gets 200 death

:23:05. > :23:08.

:23:08. > :23:12.threats per day. They all get them but these are not cashable. This is

:23:12. > :23:19.terrible. He is the one who can endure it, survive it and triumph

:23:19. > :23:28.over it. And that is the history of the race, the way he behaves in the

:23:28. > :23:35.face of all of that racism. Black people's history is one of survival,

:23:35. > :23:43.never of surrender. Never. But resistance, survival and triumph.

:23:43. > :23:48.All of which we saw with Martin Luther King. His heroes were men

:23:48. > :23:55.like him, Dundee... There were no bullets. They trained to those

:23:55. > :24:04.young people in church is how to enjoy and name-calling, when people

:24:04. > :24:10.poured things on them, through food at you... How to withstand -- how