She was born as Chloe Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, in 1931; 62 years later, Toni Morrison was in Stockholm, Sweden, receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. The journey the celebrated author traveled in the years between and following is the subject of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. From her time as a student and professor at Howard University, through her editing at Random House, to her own inimitable and influential writing career, the author’s remarkable personal history is told by Morrison herself, in intimate and candid interviews, as well as via recollections and impressions from colleagues and contemporaries such as Angela Davis, Walter Mosley, and Oprah Winfrey. Myriad accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom, are all the more impressive when viewed through the lens of Morrison’s spirited responses to adversity and acclaim, both of which she’s experienced in abundance. With this deft and stirring transition from page to screen, the author shares another inspired and inspiring story—her own.  TM

Filmmaker Q&A following screening