Photo: John Mathew Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0 — Source
American novelist, essayist, and editor who explored Black American identity, history, and community with extraordinary linguistic power. She won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Beloved' (1987), a devastating novel about the legacy of slavery, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 — the first African American woman to receive it. Her other major works include 'Song of Solomon,' 'Sula,' and 'The Bluest Eye.' As a senior editor at Random House, she championed Black literature and shaped American publishing. Her prose style — lyrical, demanding, mythic — permanently expanded the possibilities of the American novel.
Source: Nobel Prize