Peril, wriiten by Tony morison.

1. PERIL
-Written by Toni Morrison
From the module ‘THE CONSEQUENCES OF DISSENSION’

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
● Toni Morrison was an American novelist, essayist,
book editor and college professor.
● She has had not one but several distinguished careers,
as an editor at Random House where she worked to
bring black literature into the mainstream, and as a
professor of writing at Cornell, Bard and Princeton.
● She is a writer in many genres, from children’s books
to criticism.
● Her two most popular novels are Song of Solomon,
which won the National Book Critics Circle Award
in 1977, and Beloved, which won the Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction and National Book Award in
1988.
She was the first black
woman of any nationality
to win the Nobel prize.

3. Introduction
● “ PERIL” comes from Tony Morrison’s anthology she edited Burn this book.
● The essay was initially presented by Tony Morrison at PEN International festival in
2008.
● The essay considers censorship in the case of writers.
● Peril discusses three human responses to the chaos following
censorship.
Tip
The meaning of
CENSORSHIP is the
suppression of speech,
public communication,
or other information on
the basis that such
material is considered
objectionable, harmful,
sensitive or
"inconvenient".

4. MAIN POINTS:
FEAR OF UNMONITORED WRITING JUSTIFIED FOR AUTOCRATIC REGIMES
● In the case of autocratic regimes, the leaders are not fools.
● They know that it is foolish to give dissident writers freedom to publish their judgements or follow
their creative instinct.
● They are also not stupid enough to abandon control over the media.
● If an author in an authoritarian regime is given free hand, it will be perilous for the ruling power.
● The writers can then disturb the social oppression that functions within the regime.
● Doing so would mean it would lead to their own peril.

5. METHODS ADOPTED BY AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES TO CONTROL WRITERS
● Through various methods they maintain their control.
● It include surveillance, censorship, arrest and even killing of writers who inform and disturb
the public.
● This is because these writers may be unsettling, calling into question or talking another,
deeper look.
ROLE OF WRITERS
● According to Tony Morrison, the role of writers is to disturb the social oppression that
functions in an authoritarian regime.
● They are against the so-called peace that the regime forces down on the population.
PERIL FOR ORDINARY FOLKS, TO ‘US’...
● The absence of writers or the choking off of a writer’s work is of equal peril to the ordinary
folk, to ‘us’.
● Rescuing them is necessary for our own well being.
● Morrison maintains that the lives of writers, who are at Peril from such rules should be
safeguarded as it affects us as well.

6. ● There are many examples where writers flee from their home country because they voiced their
opinions against the regaining powers.
● Historically the suppression of writers is an indication of the issues people will face under such
authoritarian power, as well as the fact that something important has taken place.
● Morrison talks about the two human responses to chaos: Naming and Violence
● If the Chaos is simply something unknown to us, then the problem can be easily solved through
naming. Eg: Naming of Stars.
● But if Chaos resists by rebelling or reforming itself, then violence becomes the response.
Eg: Death in War.
● There is also a third response - stillness.
● Stillness can be passivity and dumbfoundedness or paralytic fear, but it can also be art.
● Writers who write during such chaos must be protected by other writers.
● Saving them is necessary to save us.
NIGHTMARE INCLUDING WRITER’s WORK AND LIFE AND A NECESSITY TO MANKIND
● In the case of certain kinds of trauma, writers are the only who can translate it through words using
their imagination.
Quotes for illustration purposes only

7. ● The nightmare that Tony Morrison envisages is the erasure of other voices for
fear of being overhead by the wrong people.
● She dreads the erasure of voices like unwritten novels, whispered poems that
are swallowed by the fear mentioned above, outlawed languages nourishing
underground, essayist’s questions challenging authority never being posed,
unstaged plays, cancelled films - all of these thoughts pose a nightmare for
Morrison.
● In the case of certain kinds of trauma, they are so deep and cruel, unlike
vengeance, justice or rights, that only writers can translate them and turn
their sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination.
● That is why a writer's work and life are a necessity to mankind.

8. Tip
Don’t wait till the end of
the presentation to give
the bottom line.
Reveal your product or
idea (in this case a
translation app) up front.
● THANK YOU