"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent — which attitude certainly has a great deal to support it. On the other hand, it is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important. So that any writer, looking back over even so short a span of time as I am here forced to assess, finds that the things which hurt him and the things which helped him cannot be divorced from each other; he could be helped in a certain way only because he was hurt in a certain way; and his help is simply to be enabled to move from one conundrum to the next — one is tempted to say that he moves from one disaster to the next."
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Academics from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesNovelists from New York CityPlaywrights from the United StatesAfrican Americans
Original Language: English
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James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (2 August 1924 – 1 December 1987) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and social critic.
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