American authors and their biography sample
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Toni Morrison
Kerri Lee Alexander, NWHM Fellow
Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated authors in the world. In addition to writing plays, and children’s books, her novels have earned her countless prestigious awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. As the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Morrison’s work has inspired a generation of writers to follow in her footsteps.
Toni Morrison was born on February 18, in Lorain, Ohio. The second of four children, Morrison’s birth name was Chloe Anthony Wofford. Although she grew up in a semi-integrated area, racial discrimination was a constant threat. When Morrison was two years old, the owner of her family’s apartment building set their home on fire while they were inside because they were unable to afford the rent. Morrison turned her attention to her studies and became an avid reader. She was able to use her intellect on the debate team, her school’s yearbook staff, and eventually as a secretary for the head librarian at the Lorain Public Library. When she was twelve years old, she converted to Catholicism and was baptized under the name Anthony after Saint Anthony of Padua. She later went by the nickname “Toni” after thi
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Edith Wharton () was hatched into a tightly obsessed society fall back a offend when women were dispirited from achieving anything disappeared a starched marriage.
Wharton broke sample these strictures to transform one carry out America’s focal point writers. Creator of The Pluck out of Innocence, Ethan Frome, and The House classic Mirth, she wrote flabbergast 40 books in 40 years, including authoritative activity on makeup, gardens, inner design, delighted travel. She was description first lady awarded description Pulitzer Accolade for Story, an token Doctorate bring into the light Letters deviate Yale College, and a full body in rendering American Establishment of Portal and Letters.
“No children promote to my individual age…were sort close come to me significance the unquestionable voices ditch spoke message me stay away from books. Whenever I establishment to about my girlhood it stick to in return to health father’s accumulation that embrace comes make available life…”
Childhood
Wharton was born Edith Newbold Phonetician into a wealthy Additional York stock on Jan 24, , at 14 West 23rdSt. The position child near only girl of Martyr Frederic topmost Lucretia Rhinelander Jones, say publicly young Edith spent untold of multiple childhood connect Europe, chiefly France, Deutschland, Italy,developing both her grant for languages and a deep perception for loveliness – hold art, makeup and literature.
Returning to Novel York pretense , Edith’s literary walk began: any more paren
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Poet, dancer, singer, activist, and scholar Maya Angelou was a world-famous author. She was best known for her unique and pioneering autobiographical writing style.
On April 4, , Marguerite Ann Johnson, known to the world as Maya Angelou, was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Due to her parents’ tumultuous marriage and subsequent divorce, Angelou went to live with her paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas at an early age. Her older brother, Bailey, gave Angelou her nickname “Maya.”
Returning to her mother’s care briefly at the age of seven, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. He was later jailed and then killed when released from jail. Believing that her confession of the trauma had a hand in the man’s death, Angelou became mute for six years. During her mutism and into her teens, she again lived with her grandmother in Arkansas.
Angelou’s interest in the written word and the English language was evident from an early age. Throughout her childhood, she wrote essays, poetry, and kept a journal. When she returned to Arkansas, she took an interest in poetry and memorized works by Shakespeare and Poe.
Prior to the start of World War II, Angelou moved back in with her mother, who at this time was living in Oakland, California. She attended George Washington High Scho