If We Worship Toni Morrison, What Do We Lose?

Seven years after Toni Morrison’s death, we’re experiencing what the critic Parul Sehgal describes as a “wave of Morrisonia.” Eleven of her novels are being reissued by her publisher. There’s a new book of criticism about her novels. You can feel the effort to shore up her legacy. It’s an understandable impulse. This is the woman who wrote “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that, as Parul writes, “invented a language for unassimilable pain, for the horrors of the Middle Passage, of bondage and its systematized torture and sexual brutality.” The book can feel like a kind of miracle. And Morrison, therefore, like a kind of saint. But sanctification — both Parul and Wesley fear — has its own risks. It puts Morrison up in the sky, where we can’t quite reach her. Too far away to touch. So in this episode of Cannonball, that’s what Parul, Wesley and their editor, Sasha Weiss, set out to do. Touch Morrison’s work — as she wanted us to. Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/po... “Cannonball” is a podcast from The New York Times, with the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Wesley Morris. Every week, Wesley talks to writers, artists and friends about the culture that moves us — the good, the bad and whatever’s in between. Surprisingly personal and never obvious, new episodes drop on Thursdays. Watch "Cannonball" on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe:    / @cannonballpodcast   Follow NYTimes:   / nytimes   Subscribe to NYT Audio: https://bit.ly/3Qz3GZu