--- title: 10 Questions for Toni Morrison | TIME description: The woman who earned both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes talks to TIME about writing and why she's endorsing Obama for president. canonical: https://time.com/video/m0WUJOfP/ og:title: 10 Questions for Toni Morrison og:description: The woman who earned both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes talks to TIME about writing and why she's endorsing Obama for president. og:url: https://time.com/video/m0WUJOfP/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/m0WUJOfP/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for Toni Morrison twitter:description: The woman who earned both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes talks to TIME about writing and why she's endorsing Obama for president. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/m0WUJOfP/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for Toni Morrison > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for Toni Morrison [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Toni Morrison](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/m0WUJOfP.m3u8) (6:16)  _Published 2008-05-06. The woman who earned both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes talks to TIME about writing and why she's endorsing Obama for president._ --- Feb 28, 2024 5:39 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Tony Horwitz, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist and Author, Dies Unexpectedly at 60](/video/UOWD328u/) ### Tony Horwitz, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist and Author, Dies Unexpectedly at 60 [Jennifer Egan on Her Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel](/video/HVolApAF/) ### Jennifer Egan on Her Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel [10 Questions for Van Morrison](/video/2nRIAjHE/) ### 10 Questions for Van Morrison --- ## Transcript >> Bradford Yang in Seattle asks, " How did you first discover your passion for writing ?" >> I thought my deepest passion was reading and then at some point-- not early, I was 35 or 36-- I realized there was a book that I wanted very much to read that really hadn't been written and so I sort of played around with it and trying to construct the kind of book I wanted to read. That book by the way was The Bluest Eye, which is the book about me or somebody like me and nobody had taken a little black girl seriously in literature ever before. >> In my opinion, Song of Sullivan should be required reading for all African American boys. How are you able to accurately illustrate the internal thoughts and feelings of young black men? >> That was a leap for me. I really, really wanted to do that book and I just could- I wrote some junk and then I couldn't- and I kept putting it off precisely for that reason. And then my father died. And it was, you know, earth- shaking and soul- shaking for me because nobody- the girl he knew and loved died with him, you know, his version of me which was spectacular. I was always the smartest, always fun. It was just not that you missed the person who dies, you miss the person's view of you. So I was mourning a great deal and then I remember saying to myself, " I wonder what my father knew about these men ." And I have to tell you I felt excess. I felt calm and excited, excited because I knew I could get there if I thought about him, and I also felt calm because even if I didn't know everything, I knew I could connect in some way, but having that kind of relationship with my father gave me authenticity and legitimacy. >> Do you think that young black females are still dealing with the same self- acceptance issues as your character Pecola Breedlove was in The Bluest Eye? >> No, not at all. Not at all. They seem to me to be excessively kind of fitted to themselves. >> Really? >> Oh, God, yeah, with none- they don't even know what I'm talking about. When I wrote the book, the young women who read it liked it and were protective of it, but nowadays, that was '70s. That's 30 years ago, yes. I find young African American women much more complete. They seem to have a confidence, almost a feeling of superiority in some ways that I recognize that they take for granted. >> Now, you decided for the first time to endorse a candidate this time and you- >> I did. >> endorsed obviously Barrack Obama, then- >> I did. >> what made you decide to endorse anyone? >> When he called, I thought- I told him I couldn't make a public endorsement and I said I'll think about it and I did. I thought about it and then I about it, then I thought, no, this is visionary. He's talking about not just routine change. And also, he was this incredible organizer. So I thought, you know, what he has and I haven't seen it in a lot of time. I've 77 years old. I've looked at a lot of rulers here and abroad. He has wisdom and you can't learn that just because you're old or because you went to some school or you've- you know, it's something like talent and you can have- if I've seen children when you know their whys and that to me was the rare thing. It was wisdom. I really believe that about him. >> They ask why you endorsed him when you've consistently written about women of strength and courage. >> I thought about voting for Hilary at the beginning. I don't care that she is a woman. I know some of the worst leaders in the world are women. I need more than that. So her gender was of no interest to me as his race wasn't. I don't want him up there just because he's black. We have a black Supreme Court Justice, yeah. I mean I just cannot deal with these little divisions. What is saw was his wisdom, which I thought the country needed and needs as opposed to merely underlying a woman whom I had admired for years, Hilary Clinton. But, of the 2 choices, neither his race, his gender, her race or her gender were enough. If that's all they got, that's not enough. I need something else and that something else was wisdom. >> You are my favorite author. I've read every book you've written. When will we get a chance to read another one of your books? >> November. >> She'll be happy to find that out. Thank you so much for your time. It's really a pleasure to meet you. >> I enjoyed this. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Questions for Toni Morrison","description":"The woman who earned both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes talks to TIME about writing and why she's endorsing Obama for president.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/m0WUJOfP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2008-05-06T22:19:41.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/m0WUJOfP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/m0WUJOfP/","duration":"PT6M16S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/m0WUJOfP/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```