Literary Birthday – 23 November – Gayl Jones

Five Quotes

1. When you tell a story you automatically talk about traditions, but they’re never separate from the people, the human implications. You’re talking about your connections as a human being.
2. I don’t think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities.
3. I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read.
4. I was and continue to be interested in contradictory emotions that coexist … I think people can hold two different emotions simultaneously.
5. I believe that all literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can get in the way of imaginative literature… . I’m not sure one can be a creative writer and a politician — not a good politician.

Gayl Jones is an African-American writer. Her works include The Healing, Corregidora, and Eva’s Man.

Source for image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gayl_Jones,_Koin%C3%A9_1971_(cropped).jpg

Staff of Koiné, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson