Q 01/05

What was Toni Morrison's name at birth?

A) Antonia Chloe Willis

B) Ramah Willis Wofford

C) Toni Cade Wofford

D) Chloe Ardelia Wofford

Answer · why

D) Chloe Ardelia Wofford

Chloe Ardelia Wofford later said she regretted having called herself Toni Morrison when she published her first novel.

Q 02/05

In which Ohio town was Morrison born and raised?

A) Akron

B) Toledo

C) Dayton

D) Lorain

Answer · why

D) Lorain

Lorain was integrated enough, she said, that she had no strong awareness of segregation until she left it.

Q 03/05

Toni Morrison's nickname came from which saint's name she took at her Catholic baptism at 12?

A) Antonia

B) Antoinette

C) Antonina

D) Anthony

Answer · why

D) Anthony

Anthony honored St. Anthony of Padua, and in college she began going by Toni, apparently because people kept stumbling over her first name.

Q 04/05

What did Morrison's family's landlord do when her parents couldn't pay the rent?

A) Evicted them in winter

B) Sold their furniture

C) Called the police

D) Set fire to their house

Answer · why

D) Set fire to their house

The landlord set fire to their house with the family inside when she was about two, yet the family refused to be cowed.

Q 05/05

Which two authors were among Morrison's favorites as a child?

A) Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy

B) Charles Dickens and Mark Twain

C) Emily Brontë and Victor Hugo

D) Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes

Answer · why

A) Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy

Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy were among the authors she loved as a girl, and she credited her parents with nurturing that love of reading.