Oprah, Barack Obama pay tribute to late author Toni Morrison: ‘She was our conscience. Our seer. Our truth-teller.’
Toni Morrison, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such titles as "Beloved" and "The Bluest Eye," died Monday night, her publicist and family confirmed to ABC News on Tuesday.
She was 88 years old.
The cause of death was not immediately revealed, but her family said she had "a short illness" and Morrison had been at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York at the time of her death, her publicist said.
Oprah Winfrey, who featured Morrison as a guest on her show and who featured her books as selections for her book club, took to social media Tuesday to honor the "Empress-Supreme" with a moving tribute.
“In the beginning was the Word. Toni Morrison took the word and turned it into a Song...of Solomon, of Sula, Beloved, Mercy, Paradise Love, and more," Winfrey's post began. "She was our conscience. Our seer. Our truth-teller."
Morrison was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for "Beloved" and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, and former President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Obama shared his fond words in a social media post of his own.
"Her writing was not just beautiful but meaningful—a challenge to our conscience and a call to greater empathy," he wrote. "She was as good a storyteller, as captivating, in person as she was on the page. And so even as Michelle and I mourn her loss and send our warmest sympathies to her family and friends, we know that her stories—that our stories—will always be with us, and with those who come after, and on and on, for all time."
Beyond her accolades, her decades-long writing career has inspired many readers, and those who have pursued careers in writing, to put pen to paper after reading such works as "Song of Solomon," "Sula" and "Paradise."
On Tuesday, as word of her death spread, many other notable figures took to social media to pay tribute to the iconic writer.
