started reading early in life and it was always a huge pleasure.In 1949，she entered Harvard University in Washington，D.C.She studied English literature and later received a master's degree from Cornell University in Ithaca，New York.After college she married Harold Morrison and had two children.Their marriage ended in 1964.

Morrison became an English professor and she loved nothing more than to discuss new books with students.But she realized that she needed to write when she discovered she wanted to read a book that had not yet been written.

That book turned out to be TheBluestEye，published in 1970.Toni Morrison wrote about a little black girl who believes she would be beautiful and happy if she only had the blue eyes of a white girl.

Morrison's next novel，Sula，was published in 1973.It received great praise and was nominated (提名) for the National Book Award.Her third novel，SongofSolomon，won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Many people think Beloved is Toni Morrison's best work，which was published in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.Beloved tells the story of a slave haunted by the horror of killing her own baby girl.

Morrison says she does not have a favorite among her own books and that whatever book she is currently working on is the one that interests her most.However，in 2008，she told the television host Charlie Rose that there was a book she considered her best.She achieved the goals she set for herself in the novel Jazz and it had the finest writing and ideas.

Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.She was the first African American to receive the award.The Nobel Committee said the imaginative force and poetic voice of her writing gave life to an imporant part of American reality.

【语篇解读】莫里森是第一位荣获诺贝尔文学奖的美国黑人作家。颁奖者说，她在"富有想象力和诗意的小说中"对美国黑人生活进行了"生动的描述"。本文介绍了莫里森的主要生平事迹。

20．The underlined word "it "in Paragraph 2 probably refers to ________.

　　A．writing B．her nickname

C．reading D．going to college

答案　C　[代词指代题。根据第二段中的第三句可知，it指上文中的

"reading"。]

21．As a professor，what did Morrison love to do most?

A．To discuss new books with students.

B．To write English essays.

C．To analyze writing styles.

D．To give lectures on literature.