Hello, gentle blog reader,
Unlike some presidents, Barack Obama is a man who can read (and does read) books, including those by Toni Morrison:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081106/ap_en_ot/writers_and_obama;_ylt=ArTkyh0rJuMEt1IZmWu87Dys0NUE
Writers Welcome a Literary President-Elect
NEW YORK . Last winter, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison received a phone call from Sen. Barack Obama, then the underdog to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama had contacted Morrison to ask for her support. But before they got into politics, the author and the candidate had a little chat about literature.
“He began to talk to me about one of the books I had written (Song of Solomon) and how it had meant a lot to him,” Morrison said in a postelection interview from her office at Princeton University, where for years she has taught creative writing.
“And I had read his first book (Dreams From My Father ). I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase. I was very impressed. This was not a normal political biography.”
For Morrison and others, the election of Obama matters not because he will be the first black president or because the vast majority of writers usually vote for Democrats. Writers welcome Obama as a peer, a thinker, a man of words–his own words.
Filed under: politics Tagged: | Obama reads "Song of Solomon", Obama reads Toni Morrison, Obama the author, Obama--Dreams from my Father, Obama-Toni Morrison connection, president-elect Obama is a literary man
[...] Obama: A Literary President–the Toni Morrison Connection Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama had contacted Morrison to ask for her support. But before they got into politics, the author and the candidate had a little chat about literature. … [...]