What author is mentioned more than any other in the essay collection, Well Read Black Girl?

Toni Morrison is perhaps mentioned more often than any other famous black author in this anthology. In listing sources of inspiration, nearly every essayist cites her as an idol. Her novels "Beloved," "The Bluest Eye," and "Tar Baby" are all explored in varying degrees of depth by essayists in this collection, though "Tar Baby" is given the heaviest amount of analysis. In that work, Morrison explores expectations placed upon black women by society and by black people more specifically. Her protagonist eschews a problematic relationship with a black man for a glitzy life with a white European, undermining the notion that black woman must 'sacrifice' in order to love or be loved.