The identifying fictions of Toni Morrison : modernist authenticity and postmodern blackness
"Although all published biographical sketches of Toni Morrison agree that her birth name was Chloe Anthony Wofford, this information is apparently incorrect. Using previously unknown biographical documents, John Duvall explores the issue of names and naming in Morrison's fiction and repeatedly finds surprising traces of the Nobel prize-winning author's struggle to construct a useable identity as an African American woman novelist. Whatever the exact circumstances surrounding her decision to become Toni, one thing becomes clear: the question of identity was not a given for Morrison because she rejected her given name."--Jacket
Criticism, interpretation, etc
x, 182 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
9780312234027, 0312234023
44541791
Introductory identifications: making it up or finding it?
Invisible name and complex authority in The bluest eye: Morrison's covert letter to Ralph Ellison
Engendering sexual/textual identity: Sula and the artistic gaze
Song of Solomon, narrative identity, and the Faulknerian intertext
Descent in the "House of Chloe": race, rape, and identity in Tar baby
The authorized Morrison: reflexivity and the historiographic