Toni Morrison at 90

Dominique Bourgois, publisher at Christian Bourgois Éditeur from 1980 to 2018, edited many translated works of Toni Morrison and hosted Morrison during her visits to France. She is a visiting professor at the Institut Traducteurs, d’Interprètes et de Relations Internationales de l’Université de Strasbourg (ITIRI), a founding member of the École de Traduction of the Centre National du Livre in Paris, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC). Professor Bourgois has also been a consultant for two film production companies, helping to adapt short stories for television and produce documentaries, and was a contributing editor to the cultural magazine Grand Street from 1990 to 2004. She received a Bachelor of Arts in history and philosophy from the Sorbonne University, Paris, and has earned the French honors of Officier des Arts et Lettres and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

An acclaimed scholar and critic in African-American literature and criticism, Eleanor W. Traylor is Graduate Professor of English at Howard University. She has written numerous essays, biographies, and articles on many prominent African-American writers, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Richard Wright. Professor Traylor has held advisory roles with the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, National Black Arts Festival, and Educators for the Advancement of African-American Literature in the (Public) Schools, which she established. The recipient of numerous awards, she has been inducted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. Professor Traylor has a B.A. from Spelman College, an M.A. from Atlanta University, and a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America. She is currently working on a book about emancipation narrative and agency in African-American literature.

Meredith M. Gadsby is an associate professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College, where she teaches African Diasporic Literatures, Black Women’s Writing and Black Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is also a proud mentor for Oberlin Posse 10 ‘20. She is the author of Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival and a co-edited volume, Decolonizing the Academy. Gadsby has published in the journals Interventions, Modern Fiction Studies, Small Axe, and MaComère. She sits on the International Advisory Board of The Journal of African Gender Studies, and is the former faculty liaison to the Toni Morrison Society and on the Toni Morrison Society Board of Trustees.

Paula J. Giddings is the Elizabeth A. Woodson 1922 Professor Emerita of Africana Studies at Smith College. She is the author of three books: “When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America”; “In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement”; and “Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching;” as well as editor of “Burning All Illusions,” an anthology of articles on race published by The Nation magazine from 1867 to 2000. “Ida” was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Los Angeles Times Prize in Biography as well as the Letitia Woods Brown Book Award from the Association of Black Women Historians. “Ida” was also deemed one of the most important books of the 2008 by the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post.

New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently ”An American Marriage.” The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Ms. Jones has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, “Silver Sparrow,” was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016.