erican reality" in her novels which are "characterized by visionary force and poetic import." 5 In a spontaneous reaction to the news of Morrison's triumph, the guru of African-American studies at Harvard University, Henry Gates, Jr., praised Morrison's literary achievement, comparing her to literary pioneers from three continents: Morrison is "a masterful craftsperson, which people tend to overlook. She is as great and as innovative as Faulkner and Garcia Marquez and Woolf." He also pointed to the particularity of her achievement as an African-American: "Just two centuries ago the African-American literary tradition was born in slave narratives. Now our greatest writer has won the Nobel Prize."6 No doubt Morrison was particularly pleased by the joy of the African-American women; in her acceptance speech she quotes a message on her answering machine from an artist friend: "My dear sister, the prize that is yours is also ours and could not have been placed in better hands."7 The literary critic Barbara Christian, one of the first academics to write seriously about Morrison's work in the 1970s, extols her "liberating sound": "How fortunate to have lived at a time when we can dwell in, and heal, through her language! [...] to the African-American women, Toni Morrison had long since won a Nobel Prize."8 Toni Morrison's selection as Nobel laureate did not, however, meet with universal acclaim. The surprised international reporters gathered in Stockholm on Oct 7, 1993--even those who later wrote positive commentaries—greeted the announcement of the winner with an embarrassing silence instead of the usual applause and flurry of questions to the Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sture Alln.9 Back in America, some black writers and intellectuals, who viewed TM as one of several black women writers (like Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor) appropriated by the white literary and academic establishment, saw Morrison's selection as ...
