Toni Morrison was an American author, editor and professor. She was born in Ohio in 1931. She received a BA in English from Howard University in Washington, DC, in 1953, and an MA from Cornell University in New York in 1955. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. Her second book, Sula (1973) was nominated for the National Book Award, and her third, Song of Solomon (1977) won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Beloved (1987) won various honors, including both the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States, in 2012. Her writing, known for its examination of the black experience in America, is characterised by her distinct style and unique narrative technique.
Russell Banks was an American author of 18 works of fiction, including the novels Continental Drift (1985), Cloudsplitter (1998) and Lost Memory of Skin (2011), as well as 6 short story collections, including A Permanent Member of the Family (2013). Two of his novels, Affliction (1989) and The Sweet Hereafter (1991), have been adapted into award-winning films. Banks has been a PEN/Faulkner Finalist (for Affliction, Cloudsplitter and Lost Memory of Skin) and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist (for Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter). He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.