In his lengthy 1984 Paris Review interview, which you won’t be able to access unless you go through our library website, James Baldwin discusses how he went from being a Baptist minister in Harlem from the age of 14-17, to being a writer of fiction and essays. One of his novels, If Beale Street Could Talk, has been made into movie. Baldwin’s work was essential to the Civil Rights movement. For more on this, filmmaker Raoul Peck’s recent movie I am Not Your Negro is required watching.
For the purpose of our discussion about using notebooks to understand our experience and to remember, Baldwin’s interview ends with the following statement:
“I don’t try to be prophetic, as I don’t sit down to write literature. It is simply this: a writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of something Pablo Picasso was supposed to have said to Gertrude Stein while he was painting her portrait. Gertrude said, “I don’t look like that.” And Picasso replied, “You will.” And he was right.
(From the Paris Review Interview conducted by Jordan Elgrably in 1984.)