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Somehow, I realized I could write books about black characters who reflected my own experiences or otherworldly experiences - not just stories of history, poverty and oppression.

And no book gives a deeper insight into the inner life of the Negro, his struggles and his aspirations, than, The Souls of Black Folk.

I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.

I read every one of the books on the shelf marked American Negro Literature. I became a nationalist, a colour nationalist, through the writings of men and women who lived a world away from me.

I want to see children curled up with books, finding an awareness of themselves as they discover other people's thoughts. I want them to make the connection that books are people's stories, that writing is talking on paper, and I want them to write their own stories. I'd like my books to provide that connection for them.

For some of us, books are intrinsic to our sense of personal identity.

It did occur to me that certainly African-Americans are not underserved in picture books, but those books are almost all about specifically black experiences.

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.