Toni Morrison 2: Song of Solomon
About this episode
This episode explores Toni Morrison's 'Song of Solomon' and its impact on American literature and African American history.
Song of Solomon (1977) propelled Toni Morrison into mainstream recognition as a major American writer, not just of her own generation but all generations, past present and to come. Song tackled something close to the “whole” of African American history, weaving multi-generational stories that included Africa itself, the southern landscapes of plantation slavery and the Civil War, and the post-abolition north. It’s a family chronicle, focusing on the life story of the well-to-do Macon Dead III, aka “Milkman,” who grows from boy to man in 1930s and 40s Michigan. The book brilliantly combines mythology, history, domestic and magical realism. Song of Solomon quickly became famous, expressing a growing awareness among American readers in the late 1970s that the Black civil rights movement of the past 3 decades was, at best, a partial success. One of Morrison’s signature qualities was to focus on writing about Black characters for Black readers, in ways that moved beyond the tropes, devices and storylines that white readers could understand and that previous generations of Black writers had been able to immerse themselves in, In this episode, the second in our series on the…
People in this episode
Hosts: Sophie Gee, Jonty Claypole
Topics covered
- Toni Morrison
- African American history
- literature
- family chronicle
- cultural magic
- Black identity
Keywords
- Toni Morrison
- Song of Solomon
- African American literature
- Black history
- Nobel Laureate
- cultural identity
- literary analysis
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Song of Solomon
Places: Michigan
More episodes of Secret Life of Books
- Back to School 3: A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
- Back to School 2: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- Back to School 1: Tom Brown's School Days
- The Secret Life of (Literary) Honeymoons
- Beowulf: Inside the Anglo-Saxon mind
- "On Morrison": a conversation with Namwali Serpell
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