"All of that art-for-art's-sake stuff is BS . . . What are these people talking about? Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschylus weren't writing about kings? All good art is political! There is none that isn't . . . We've just dirtied the word 'politics,' made it sound like it's unpatriotic or something . . . My point is that it has to be both: beautiful and political at the same time. I'm not interested in art that is not in the world. And it's not just the narrative, it's not just the story; it's the language and the structure and what's going on behind it. Anybody can make up a story." - Toni Morrison
You can only find the complete interview in the print edition of Poets & Writers Nov/Dec 2008. Morrison's new novel, A Mercy, about the Mixed experience in seventeenth century Virginia, will be in bookstores in November. I can't wait!
