During the 1950s, many Black writers worked in response to “the white gaze,” which implicitly positioned the white perspective as a default. Toni Morrison saw this norm take shape and vowed never to follow it. “I felt that they were not writing to me,” she said. Instead, Morrison invented her own style, free of any altered gaze, to accurately and unapologetically represent her experience as a Black woman. “Navigating a white male world was not threatening,” Morrison said of her early career in the 1960s.”I was more interesting than they were. I knew more than they did. And I wasn’t afraid to show it.” But Morrison’s persona as a seminal Black woman writer often took precedence over her literary gravitas. A new podcast embarks on a weekly examination of the author’s writing, captured in conversation as the moderator Namwali Serpell tours with her book On Morrison. Each taping provides insight on how to read great literature. —Maggie Turner