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.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.
In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
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.
I didn't have that many black people in my life, so I had to sort of search them out. And I didn't grow up in America, but I identified as much with their writing about the black experience as I did with their writing about the human experience.
Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.
I believe that the American audience is not so dumb that they wouldn't be interested in a black story.
I always crave to see more stories about and by people of color, particularly new work by young black writers.
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.
My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.
No opposing quotes found.