RIP Toni Morrison

Akwaeke Emezi, from Facebook
October 11, 2015 ·
I wish I could remember the exact details of this interview with Toni Morrison. I only have the badly formatted online transcript, but the concept she mentions of standing on the edge and claiming it as central is gospel to me. We are already the mainstream.

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Interviewer: “And you will maintain this safe place for yourself, for your art? You don’t think you will ever change and write books that incorporate white lives into them substantially?”

Morrison: “I have done.”

Interviewer: “In a substantial way?”

Morrison: “You can’t understand how powerfully racist that question is, can you? Because you could never ask a white author, when are you going to write about black people? Whether he did or not, or she did or not. Even the inquiry comes from a position of being in the center–And being used to being in the center. And saying is it ever possible you will enter into mainstream? It’s inconceivable that where I already am is the mainstream.”

Interviewer: “Oh, no, that wasn’t the implication of my question. I think you are very, very much in the mainstream. It’s a question of the subject of your narrative. Whether you want to alter the parameters of it. Whether you see any benefit in doing that, or, well you clearly see disadvantages in doing it from your own point of view?”

Morrison: “Artistic disadvantages, there are no pluses for me. Being an African American writer is sort of like being a Russian writer who writes about Russia in Russian for Russians. And the fact that it gets translated and read by other people is a benefit, it’s a plus. But he’s not obliged to ever consider writing about French people, or Americans, or anybody.”

Interviewer: “When we were talking earlier about you being or not being in the mainstream, you are sure in the mainstream when it comes to public acclaim.”

Morrison: “I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to know that I have learned a readership that is that large, as large as it is. I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central. Claimed it as central, and let the rest of world move over to where I was.”