1.When was Toni Morrison's sixth novel published? ...

2.What problem was Morrison faced with just like other creative artists? The intrusion of the outside world into ...

3.What was Morrison's life like after she won Nobel Prize? It was deluged by congratulations, ... and ...

After finishing her sixth novel, Jazz, published in 1922, Toni Morrison began casting about for the subject of her next book. Constant reading, a habit and passion she developed as a little girl, eventually led her to an obscure chapter in 19th century U.S. history: the westward emigration of former slaves into the sparsely settled territories of Oklahoma and beyond. Some found the promise of a new life in wide-open spaces, touted in numerous newspaper advertisements in the 1870s, irresistible and a challenge besides. As she began imagining how this historical material might generate a work of fiction, Morrison bumped into one of the banes of creative artists everywhere: the intrusion of the outside world into the space of private concentration. In October 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. “I was so happy that I had a real book idea in progress,” she said of the beleaguered period following the announcement. “If I hadn’t, I would have thought, ‘Can I ever write a novel again?” At that moment, deluged by congratulations, invitations and preparations, never mind another novel, Morrison found herself stymied by her acceptance speech. She had no free time to work on it, and when she stole some, she produced nothing she liked. “I called someone at the Nobel Committee and said, if you are going to keep giving prizes to women — and I hope you do — you are going to have to give us more warning.”