Pulitzer Prize winning writer Toni Morrison talks about growing up in a community of storytellers.
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as more commonly as Toni, was born during the years of the Great Depression in Lorain, Ohio. Growing up in the Midwest she did not experience segregation, and describes a,
A very close-knit community with large extended families and people who were suffering the consequences of the Great Depression. That meant there was a great deal of sharing.
Although radio was an established medium at the time, not many households owned a set, so storytelling was the preferred way to pass an evening.
It was the entertainment, and it also was the education.
The church held an important position in the community, and she also experienced how the network of African-American Christian churches similarly looked after those who called on them in times of need.
Toni Morrison has been described as a writer capable of exercising control in her writing. She does not find it useful to have anger as a starting point in the creative process, preferring to draw the reader into the story by other means, so that they,
Know exactly who they are, and of what they are made.
From 'Bookside’ broadcast on 16 June 1988. The reporter is Anne Roper.
In comparison to its predecessor 'Folio', which focused more on writers and critics discussing books, as well as poetry and the arts in general, the focus of ‘Bookside’ was firmly on the readers. In an interview with the RTÉ Guide, presenter Doireann Ní Bhriain explains that it will consider books from "the buyer’s browser’s point of view...we’re aiming for a broad-based magazine programme about all aspects of the books world." (RTÉ Guide 17 October 1986)
First broadcast on 22 October 1986, ‘Bookside’ ran until 1989.
