Professor Susan Mayberry honored for literary work on prize-winning author Toni Morrison

Susan Mayberry

Susan Mayberry, Jane Peterson Professor of the Humanities in Alfred University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been recognized for her scholarly work on the late Nobel Prize-winning author, Toni Morrison.

Morrison was an African American novelist and editor who passed away in 2019 at the age of 88. She won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and in 1993 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mayberry has written two books in Morrison: "Can't I Love What I Criticize: the Masculine and Morrison," published in 2007, and "The Critical Life of Toni Morrison: Making a Home in the Rock," published in 2021.

The Toni Morrison Society has recognized Mayberry for her work on "The Critical Life of Toni Morrison: Making a Home in the Rock," awarding her its Book Prize for Best Single-Authored Book, 2019-2022. The prize is given to the book that represents the best original scholarship solely on Toni Morrison, based on the originality and clarity of the thesis, the soundness of the research, the quality of the writing, and the impact of the book on Morrison Scholarship.

"Choosing a book for the Best Single-Authored book this year was not an easy task," the Toni Morrison Society said in a letter to Mayberry notifying her she had won prize. "The range of works, from critical analyses to readers' resources, from in-depth single-text analyses to comprehensive studies covering all of Professor Morrison's novels, made the choice particularly difficult. Yet your study did stand out for all of the Committee members and became our unanimous selection."

The Toni Morrison Society Book Prizes will be presented during the American Literature Association Conference in Chicago on May 24, at the Reception and Awards Ceremony hosted by the African American Literature and Culture Society.