She didn't publish her first book, "The Bluest Eye," until she was 39 years old. Her most significant novel was "Beloved," which was based on a true story of an enslaved African-American woman. The novel was a best seller for 25 weeks and won many awards, one of which being the Pultizer Prize.

That trope often toured the segregated south, allowing her to see the racial hierarchy and how it divided people based on the color of their skin. After school she became a professor and an editor of fiction and other novels written by African American writers.

She's won multiple awards such as the Pultizer Prize, Nobel Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In college, she was part of a theatre group called the "Howard University Players."