Writing our stories allows us to control the narrative and memorialize our lives.  Chinua Achebe, the prominent Nigerian novelist and essayist in an interview with the Paris Review said, "There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter," according to NPR.

Iconic American author and anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston famously said, ​“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

This is why documenting our lives through fiction or autobiography is so important to our cultural legacies. In many ways, we remember Malcolm X as an activist, and father because of Alex Hailey’s remarkable autobiography and Spike Lee’s film adaptation.

Acclaimed author Toni Morrison, who worked as an editor at Random House, used her position to do that exact work--allowing important figures and writers to document and memorialize their lives and the times they lived in. Highlighting Toni Morrison's work as an editor, Dana A. Williams captured her legacy in the book “Toni At Random,” published June 17.

Farah Jasmine Griffin, the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, described “Toni At Random” as a meticulously researched book that introduces us to Morrison as an editor who shaped American publishing and, as a result, American culture.

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Seen as a multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author by shaping the contours of American culture as an editor at one of the biggest publishing houses, Random House.

During her tenure as an editor, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape. Editors edit the work of writers and help shape their work before it's published. Morrison worked with prolific Black authors, including Gayl Jones and Lucille Clifton, and she also edited books for cultural icons such as Muhammad Ali.

Here are some of the authors (and their later books) that Toni Morrison helped usher into our cultural landscape:

Find out more about "Toni At Random" by Dana A. Williams here: Harper Collins