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PASSAGES: On Morrison

Coming May 21st | PASSAGES: On Morrison

5/4/20263 min

PASSAGES: On Morrison is a podcast that takes reading on the road. At each stop on our tour, Namwali Serpell and fellow writers open up a different passage of Toni Morrison's prose, in front of a live audience. 

You can purchase the book ON MORRISON by Namwali Serpell through https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/752344/on-morrison-by-namwali-serpell/. 

This podcast is a production of the Random House Publishing Group.

Clips

Courage To Not Explain

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Speaker 00:01

    Passages.

  2. Speaker 10:01

    You want me, huh? You want my life?

  3. Speaker 20:04

    Life, life, life, life.

  4. Namwali Serpell· Host0:07

    Not even the gardens fronting the lake showed marigolds that year. When you first read Toni Morrison, you have to let the language wash over you.

  5. Speaker 10:17

    What made her think her fingernails could open locks the rain rained on?

  6. Speaker 20:21

    It was not a story to pass on.

  7. Namwali Serpell· Host0:24

    But to really read Morrison, you have to slow down.

  8. Speaker 20:29

    The strong words, strange at first.

  9. Namwali Serpell· Host0:32

    Pay attention to each phrase.

  10. Speaker 20:34

    Becoming familiar.

  11. Namwali Serpell· Host0:36

    Each word.

  12. Speaker 20:37

    Gaining weight and hypnotic beauty the more they heard them.

  13. Namwali Serpell· Host0:40

    One passage at a time.

  14. Speaker 20:43

    No marigolds did not grow, did not, nobody, were not. So many negations puncturing the first paragraph.

  15. Namwali Serpell· Host0:52

    I'm Namwali Serpell. I'm a novelist, critic, and a professor at Harvard, where I teach a class on Toni Morrison's writing. I wrote a book based on that teaching called On Morrison. And in this series, I'm bringing you with me on my book tour. This is Namwali, coming to you from Boston Logan Airport. A supermarket in Philadelphia. The Lorain Public Library in Lorain, Ohio. Coming to you from Oakland, California.

  16. Speaker 4· Guest1:17

    Hi, Namwali.

  17. Namwali Serpell· Host1:19

    Hi, how are you? At each stop on our journey, we slow it down and close read a different passage of Toni Morrison's innovative, magnificent prose. You know, it strikes me

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