To ask about The Great American Novel is to invite a debate about every portion of the phrase. Why use the definite article, which suggests that only one book can lay claim to the title? What ...

Ms. Morrison, who wrote “Beloved” and “Song of Solomon,” was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel in literature.

Toni Morrison, the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, is gone. But her unique voice – earthy, poetic, powerful, elliptical – endures in novels like "Beloved, "Song of ...