Authors of the 70s :: essays research papers

Litature is a major contributory factor in a decade. In the 70s there were several break-out authors who we still read and look up to today. Among them are John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, Neil Simon, Sam Sheperd, Agatha Christie, Robert C. Atkins, Christina Crawford, Richard Nixon, Carl Sagan, and Stephen King. Robert C. Atkins is responsible for the Atkins Diet which has taken America by storm. Christina Crawford is responsible for the book Mommie Dearest, which gave an in depth view into the life of Christina Crawford growing up as Joan Crawford’s daughter. Richard Nixon wrote the book Memoirs of Richard Nixon. And Stephen King debuted in 1979 with his first big name book, The Dead Zone. Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio in 1931. Her six major novels--The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Sula, Tar Baby, Beloved, and Jazz--have collected nearly every major literary prize. Ms. Morrison received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 for Song of Solomon. In 1987, Beloved was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Her body of work was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993. Other major awards include: the 1996 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Pearl Buck Award (1994), the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (Paris, 1994), and 1978 Distinguished Writer Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ms. Morrison was appointed Robert F. Goheen Professor of the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University in the spring of 1989. Before coming to Princeton, she held teaching posts at Yale University, Bard College, and Rutgers University. In 1990 she delivered the Clark lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Massey Lectures at Harvard University. Ms. Morrison was also a senior editor at Random House for twenty years. She has degrees from Howard and Cornell Universities. A host of colleges and universities have given honorary degrees to Ms. Morrison. Among them are Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Sarah Lawrence College, Dartmouth, Yale, Georgetown, Columbia University and Brown University. Ms. Morrison was commissioned by Carnegie Hall in 1992 to write lyrics for "Honey and Me", an original piece of music by Andre Previn. The lyrics were sung in performance by Kathleen Battle. In 1997, she wrote the lyrics for "Sweet Talk", which was written by Richard Danielpour and performed in concert by Jessye Norman.