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Toni Morrison (Photo by Deborah Feingold/Corbis via Getty Images)

U.S. President Barack Obama whispers to novelist Toni Morrison as he prepares to award her a 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington (Photo by Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images)
Toni Morrison poses February 2, 2004 in her downtown Manhattan apartment in New York City. (Photo by Jean-Christian Bourcart/Getty Images)