(FILES) In this file photo taken on September 21, 2012 US author Toni Morrison attends a reception sponsored by the US ambassador at his residence in Paris, as part of the 10th America Festival. - Toni Morrison, the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has died following a short illness, her family said in a statement on August 6, 2019. She was 88. "Although her passing represents a tremendous loss, we are grateful she had a long, well lived life," they said. (Photo by PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP)