Toni Morrison, Tar Baby

Marion Treby (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1981

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Toni Morrisons fourth novel Tar Baby was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1981. When it was released her picture appeared on the cover of Newsweek, which also featured an article describing her as “an editor at Random House, a teacher (formerly at Yale, currently at Bard College), a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an active member of the National Council on the Arts and a prize-winning novelist” (Strouse, “Tony Morrison’s Black Magic”, Newsweek, March 30^th, 1981). Tar Baby was preceded by the successful Song of Solomon (1977), which had earned Morrison the National Book Critics Circle Award and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award; however, no such awards followed the publication of Tar Baby. It was to be succeeded by the first novel in...

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2885 words

Citation: Treby, Marion. "Tar Baby". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 September 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1703, accessed 09 June 2026.]

Toni Morrison, Tar Baby

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