(FILES) In this file photo taken on May 29, 2012 US President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author Toni Morrison during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington,DC. - 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 Mandel NGAN / AFP)