Toni Morrison's statement about writing & revision -- ep. by Howard Rambsy II

A short take on an alternative way of understanding a popular Toni Morrison quotation. 

Written by Howard Rambsy II

Read by Kassandra Timm

Transcript

“I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.”  

People love that quotation from Toni Morrison. 

Her statement – “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it” – has now circulated for more than forty years.  But what if we misunderstood what Morrison was really saying?

You’re listening to Remarkable Receptions—a podcast about popular and critical responses to African American novels.

Morrison’s famous quotation was spoken during an interview in 1981 with Charles Ruas. At one point during the interview, Ruas asks Morrison if her reading interests shaped her artistic aims. Morrison responded,

"When I said I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it, I meant it literally. I had to finish it so that I could read it, and what that gave me, I realize now, was an incredible distance from it, and from that I have learned. If what I wrote was awful, I would try to make it like the book I wished to read. I trusted that ability to read in myself."

So Morrison was saying that she needed to complete her project in order to offer a serious self-evaluation of what she produced. She had to finish a draft of her story, her manuscript, before she could gain the necessary distance or space to think critically about the revision process. 

“I had to finish it so that I could read it,” she said. In other words, she needed to complete the project or complete a draft of the project before she could seriously revise it. 

Despite the points that she was making about revisions, the part that stuck, the part that circulated was a small fragment of what Morrison said: “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.” The larger story that she was telling about her own revision process was largely overlooked. 

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This episode was written by Howard Rambsy. The episode was edited by Elizabeth Cali. 

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This podcast, Remarkable Receptions, is part of the Black Literature Network, a joint project from African American literary studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the History of Black Writing at the University of Kansas. The project was made possible by the generous support of the Mellon Foundation.  For more information, visit blacklitnetwork.org.