The Virginia governor’s race waded into US culture wars this week when Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin seemed to take aim at Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved.

Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel laureate in literature, whose acclaimed, best-selling work explored black identity in America and in particular the experience of black women, died on Monday in the Bronx. She was 88.

Her death, at Montefiore Medical Center, was announced by her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. A spokeswoman said the cause was complications of pneumonia. Ms. Morrison lived in Grand View-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Toni Morrison, author of the acclaimed novel Beloved, died Monday night at the age of 88.

An acclaimed storyteller, Morrison was born in Ohio in 1931 and is known for her essays and books exploring the culture and experience of African Americans. Her 1987 book Beloved garnered much acclaim and in 1993 she won the Nobel Prize for fiction, making her the first black woman to achieve the honor.

When Toni Morrison received her Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, her remarks began with a reflection on the phrase once upon a time. In her signature, measured cadence, Morrison told the Swedish Academy she believed these were some of the first words we remember from our childhoods.

Morrison, who was 88, died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, according to her publisher, Penguin Random House. Morrison's family, in a statement released by the publisher, said she died "following a short illness" and surrounded by loved ones.