"I don't think the isolation of the American writer is a tradition; it's more that geographically he just is isolated, unless he happens to live in New York City. But I don't suppose there's a small town around the country that doesn't have a writer. The thing is that here you get to be a writer differently. I mean, a writer like Sartre decides, like any professional man, when he's fifteen, sixteen years old, that instead of being a doctor he's going to be a writer. And he absorbs the French tradition and proceeds from there. Well, here you get to be a writer when there's absolutely nothing else you can do. I mean, I don't know of any writers here who just started out to be writers, and then became writers. They just happen to fall into it."
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Novelists from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesPeople from ChicagoPeople from Detroit
Original Language: English
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Nelson Algren
(March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer.
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