the american novelist toni morrison who died on monday night aged 88 is of course best remembered for her book beloved it won her so many fans and so many accolades to. morrison once said we die that may be the meaning of life but we do language that may be the measure of our lives wise words a look back now at her extraordinary life great magic solution or a technical in toni morrison's career the 1st african american nobel literature laureate receiving the presidential award of freedom from america's 1st african-american president barack obama in 2012. her path to success was studded with obstacles that she overcame with defiant inspired by her grandfather as she remembered in a documentary the pieces i am released earlier this year. my grandfather.

said it was illegal in his life to marry out of. that word. before becoming a writer morrison made her way up the male dominated world of new york publishing always fearless she soon realized that she and not the old white males around her was the smartest person in the room i was more interesting then. she turned the status quo of white perception on its head when talk show host dick cavett asked her a provocative question. i prefer. well i'm tired of people asking the question. later oprah winfrey's book club helped toni morrison become a household name her novels such as the bluest eye song of solomon and beloved went beyond bestseller status they contributed to

a shift in african-american storytelling a style that embraced ruthless honesty. toni morrison empowered countless readers and will be remembered as a force of nature in the world of literature and beyond. colleague david leavitt's joins me now as i mentioned this year's molnar runs as she was a force of nature and it's so inspiring just watching her in some of those old interviews you know what's so inspiring about her is that as an author and as a person she stood for dignity in the face of hardship and racism and oppression you know when she started writing when she published her 1st novel as a single mother at age 40 stories about black americans were not considered literature for everyone they were really put in a box but she made stories about black americans world literature and she showed a lot of people along the way both in america and around the western world that great literature does not have to be just about white people and we sold in the

piece barack obama giving her the presidential medal of freedom and indeed we've just heard from obama on twitter he just said toni morrison was a national treasure as good a storyteller as captivating in person as she was on the page a right he was a beautiful meaningful challenge to our conscience and moral imagination what a gift to breathe the same. if only for a while. well yeah that was great he writes quite well what has impact on the united states as a whole well she's largely credited with un censoring big chapters of american history if you will to do with racism to do with slavery and in her books and also she's captured a mayor an african-american history and experiences in a way that a lot of black people in america didn't feel that they had been understood before

and when someone. really understands you really sees your rights great literature about you that's an inspiration and beyond being an inspiration as an editor toni morrison made a lot of room on the shelves for many other great black authors. including angela davis and. beloved was a most famous book but i know there's another book particularly struck here right well she did write 11 novels she wrote children's stories she wrote books of essays but actually her very 1st book the bluest eye that she brought out in 1970 is one that people who are still reading and and it's a really compelling story about not just racism but internalized racism it's about a young girl named pick koehler who grows up in morrisons hometown in ohio and she's taunted by the other kids because of her dark features and her dark hair and her dark eyes so much so that she actually believes that she is ugly and she prays

to god for him to give her blue eyes now it's also a story about sexual abuse because it is raped by her father and what's really amazing about the way that toni morrison tells the story and tells other stories is she puts you so much in the heads of her characters she she doesn't demonize because father she actually humanizes him by telling you about his trauma and that doesn't excuse him but that was really her greatest gift was humanizing her character's day limits thank you very much tony robin morrison fantastic rise of a fantastic woman as well thank you. moving on now and i have to say i'm not the most relaxed flying but if i had to choose to a full of aerial transports it would be a whole. it's all my bucket list of things to do and when i see a beautifully designed balloon up in the skies it gets my interest going again like

now we're off to one of the biggest balloon festivals in the world in france. playing there yes. the event is one of the biggest of its kind in the world. haha share ballooning enthusiasm the festival in champlain in northeastern france is the place to be. it was started so she years ago by a man from a family with a legendary ancestor. to. my wrong while the far as. i was saying that throughout the man. bush. i mean the story because it's my dwelling wrong wrong wrong or the that's what it always was there were the 1st man that in. fact was in 17 and she's

3. this year the globe is mondiale ever known saw nearly 500 balloons lift off the people who pallet them a still pretty red so there's a real novelty element to deal driving of the balloonists from some 40 different nations at the launch area over the 10 days of the festival some 500000 visitors will watch them lift off twice a day in the middle of the rain great nature of hot. women are still in the minority among balloonists. one of the 40 women pilots is from not feel. good more than 500 hours in the air she's among the most experienced pilots. but even for her this kind of mounts launch is a special challenge. upload to ensure of

course your purse if we all fly alone or if you're fly just because some belongs in the sky it's less this. this challenge. is private one of the work on the bones it's just it's just good bench and tension because you don't want to disturb any other more than of course done done done which my balloon and it's. it's usually about so he said this in the good safe. one of the highlights of the festival is the night when the balloon stay on the ground that are inflated so they close from within it's a special spectacle from an impressive cristobal in the motherland of hot air ballooning. i just think it's got to be the best way to see the earth not just go to pluck up courage to go up in the hall to evolution anyway check knowledge is changing the whole experience a visiting

a museum or mentored reality can show you the real painting and an altered version side by side but exactly what the art of vive does it can add a digital there to an artwork thereby opening up a whole new world when it comes to viewing a painting for instance you can now see how the painting changed as the artist painted it. busy diving into an image losing our selves inside it. is that enough for us. is more possible. busy here in a life of a painting by egon schiele that has been revealed thanks to mentored reality the technology makes the earlier versions of the work visible not just under an x. ray but on a smartphone as well. mentored reality puts

digital layers over the actual artwork and you don't need special goggles to see it still in the here and now but the smartphone allows us to expand what we see download the app hold your phone up to the picture and voila pictures suddenly come to life on walls on the streets and in museums. this is the birthplace of the art. it's one of several startups trying to make a mark internationally with the concept. it's a new art form just like film or photography at the end of the 19th century and we're seeing that augmented reality is truly becoming an art medium overturning. the startup is also a gallery artists exhibit their works there and give importance for the further development of the app. the artist little has been involved from the start. you

reach a point where it's just finished but with reality you have the added component of time so you can show something over a certain period of time. overlap . the picture on the wall is the artwork the combination of it with the digital elements. the process is the most important part but an astonishing point remains the menu cost of changing. so perhaps the smartphone is only an intermediate stage and in the future will stand in front of paintings swiping away certainly these apps are also gimmicks but who doesn't like secret in science and useless bits of detailed information and after all the artworks themselves remain.

soon you won't need to go to a museum with a mixture of virtual minded reality you'll be able to experience it all in your living room but i shouldn't say that please support museums they are wonderful institutions that's over this edition of ops and culture more on the web side of course i do have a dot com slash culture on facebook. a

world of obscene wealth. india's new projects allow fleeting glimpses of. the subcontinent economically has made them billionaires. out there reveling in their misfortune. to a museum rich with. joseph of india 15 minutes tom de tocqueville. banga lewis most of weighs in india's silicon valley team was a is running out read the threads in recent years has created almost a crisis the city needs sustainable solutions and money could be suicide and ancient tradition. of. humans on v.w. .

breeds a sex phone operator who worked her masters thesis on the potato rendering to me. not to turn on well it gets more ridiculous from their. list international and street. the world is getting warmer soon the floors could just refuse a lot of problems. the global 3000 talked about scene with british researchers who take an optimistic view. the world is not always a good plan but it's much much fairer than it was in the past is the world really getting better. i close to $3000.00 special record. starts august 19th on g.w. . cut

. cut cut cut. this is deja vu news live from berlin russia's losing battle with massive wildfires firefighters are struggling to contain the blazes now covering an area the size of denmark it's being called a climate catastrophe also coming up millions in zimbabwe are on the brink of starvation the u.n. issues an urgent appeal for aid we'll look at what's behind the crisis. and a launch that's linking up a new data highway.