Toni Morrison, most known for her incredible work on the book “Beloved”, has passed away at the age of 88.

Publisher Knopf and her family released a statement confirming of the author’s death at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, following a short illness. The cause of death was not immediately known.

“We are profoundly sad to report that Toni Morrison has died at the age of eighty-eight,” her publisher, Knopf, wrote on Twitter.

Morrison’s family said: “Although her passing represents a tremendous loss, we are grateful she had a long, well lived life. While we would like to thank everyone who knew and loved her, personally or through her work, for their support at this difficult time, we ask for privacy as we mourn this loss to our family.”

Morrison, born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, Ohio during the Great Depression, won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for her novel, “Beloved,” which was later adapted into a film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover in 1998. Morrison is credited for carving out a place in literature for African American voices.

The novel “Beloved” was the first in a trilogy by the author. “Jazz” later came out in 1992 and “Paradise” in 1997. . Her latest novel, “God Help the Child,” was published in 2015.

In 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first black woman to receive the honor. She was also given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2012.