Editing Toni Morrison (section)

=== Early 21st century ===
Morrison continued to explore different art forms, such as providing texts for original scores of classical music. She collaborated with [[André Previn]] on the song cycle ''Honey and Rue'', which premiered with [[Kathleen Battle]] in January 1992, and on ''Four Songs'', premiered at [[Carnegie Hall]] with [[Sylvia McNair]] in November 1994. Both ''Sweet Talk: Four Songs on Text'' and ''Spirits In the Well'' (1997) were written for [[Jessye Norman]] with music by [[Richard Danielpour]], and, alongside [[Maya Angelou]] and [[Clarissa Pinkola Estés]], Morrison provided the text for composer [[Judith Weir]]'s ''woman.life.song'' commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Jessye Norman, which premiered in April 2000.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://classicalmusicindy.org/toni-morrison-in-classical-music/|title=Toni Morrison in Classical Music|first=Anna|last= Hinkley|website=Classical Music Indy|date=September 8, 2020|access-date=February 12, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://honor.carnegiehall.org/honor/artists/artistDetail.aspx?art=tmorrison|title=Honor! A Celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy – Festival Artists – Toni Morrison|website=honor.carnegiehall.org|date=March 2009|access-date=August 6, 2019}}</ref>

Morrison returned to Margaret Garner's life story, the basis of her novel ''Beloved'', to write the [[libretto]] for a new opera, ''[[Margaret Garner (opera)|Margaret Garner]]''. Completed in 2002, with music by Richard Danielpour, the opera was premièred on May 7, 2005, at the [[Detroit Opera House]] with [[Denyce Graves]] in the title role.<ref name=Norman>[http://www.margaretgarner.org/brown_normanrelease.html "Rising Opera Star Angela M. Brown to replace Jessye Norman in World Premiere Production of Margaret Garner"], Michigan Opera Theater, April 1, 2005. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029220805/http://www.margaretgarner.org/brown_normanrelease.html |date=October 29, 2014 }}.</ref> ''[[Love (Morrison novel)|Love]]'', Morrison's first novel since ''Paradise'', came out in 2003. In 2004, she put together a children's book called ''Remember'' to mark the 50th anniversary of the ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' Supreme Court decision in 1954 that declared racially segregated public schools to be unconstitutional.<ref name=":4">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/toni-morrison-cornel-west-politics/|title='We Better Do Something': Toni Morrison and Cornel West in Conversation|date=May 6, 2004|magazine=[[The Nation]]|access-date=April 7, 2023}}</ref>

From 1997 to 2003, Morrison was an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at [[Cornell University]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/all-professors-at-large-1965-to-june-30-20222/|title=All Professors at Large 1965 to June 30, 2023|website=Cornell University|access-date=June 8, 2018}}</ref>

In 2004, Morrison was invited by [[Wellesley College]] to deliver the [[commencement address]], which has been described as "among the greatest commencement addresses of all time and a courageous counterpoint to the entire genre".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/07/21/toni-morrison-wellesley-commencement/|title=Toni Morrison on How to Be Your Own Story and Reap the Rewards of Adulthood in a Culture That Fetishizes Youth|first=Maria|last=Popova|website=The Marginalian|date=July 21, 2015|access-date=October 13, 2024}}</ref>

In June 2005, the [[University of Oxford]] awarded Morrison an [[Honorary degree|honorary]] [[Doctor of Letters]] degree.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morrison |first=Toni |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eV9_8v4pTzsC&pg=PR23 |title=Toni Morrison: Conversations |date=2008 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |isbn=978-1604730197 |page=xxiii}}</ref>

In the spring 2006, ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'' named ''Beloved'' the best work of American fiction published in the previous 25 years, as chosen by a selection of prominent writers, literary critics, and editors.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/fiction-25-years.html|title=What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?|date=May 21, 2006|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=May 1, 2017}}</ref> In his essay about the choice, "In Search of the Best", critic [[A. O. Scott]] said: "Any other outcome would have been startling since Morrison's novel has inserted itself into the American canon more completely than any of its potential rivals. With remarkable speed, 'Beloved' has, less than 20 years after its publication, become a staple of the college literary curriculum, which is to say a classic. This triumph is commensurate with its ambition since it was Morrison's intention in writing it precisely to expand the range of classic American literature, to enter, as a living Black woman, the company of dead White males like [[William Faulkner|Faulkner]], [[Herman Melville|Melville]], [[Nathaniel Hawthorne|Hawthorne]] and [[Mark Twain|Twain]]."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/review/scott-essay.html|title=In Search of the Best|last=Scott|first=A. O.|author-link=A. O. Scott|date=May 21, 2006|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=May 1, 2017}}</ref>

In November 2006, Morrison visited the [[Louvre]] museum in Paris as the second in its "Grand Invité" program to guest-curate a month-long series of events across the arts on the theme of "The Foreigner's Home", about which ''The New York Times'' said: "In tapping her own African-American culture, Ms. Morrison is eager to credit 'foreigners' with enriching the countries where they settle."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.denverpost.com/2006/11/08/toni-morrison-puts-slam-poetry-in-louvre/|title=Toni Morrison puts slam poetry in Louvre|newspaper=[[The Denver Post]]|agency=Associated Press|date=November 8, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/books/21morr.html|title=Rap and Film at the Louvre? What's Up With That?|first=Alan |last=Riding|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 21, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/toni-morrison-louvre-13088/|title=Toni Morrison on Looking for 'Wordless Forms' at the Louvre, in 2006: From the Archives|website=[[ARTnews]]|date=August 8, 2019|access-date=February 12, 2021}}</ref>

Morrison's novel ''[[A Mercy]]'', released in 2008, is set in the Virginia colonies of 1682. [[Diane Johnson]], in her review in ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', called ''A Mercy'' "a poetic, visionary, mesmerizing tale that captures, in the cradle of our present problems and strains, the natal curse put on us back then by the Indian tribes, Africans, Dutch, Portuguese, and English competing to get their footing in the New World against a hostile landscape and the essentially tragic nature of human experience."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2008/12/morrison200812|title=Voice of America|last=Johnson|first=Diane|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=December 2008|access-date=May 1, 2017}}</ref>