Interviewer: You don’t think you will ever change and write books that will incorporate White lives into them substantially?
Toni: I have done.
Interviewer: In a substantial way?
Toni: You can’t understand how powerfully racist that question is, can you? Because you would never ask a White author, ‘when are you going to write about Black people?’ Whether he did or not, or she did or not. Even the inquiry comes from a position of being in the center…
Interviewer…and being used to being in the center.
Toni: And being used to being in the center. And saying, ‘is it ever possible that you will enter the mainstream?’ [That question implies that] it’s inconceivable that where I already am is the mainstream… Being an African American writer is like being a Russian writer, who writes about Russia, in Russian for Russians. And the fact that it gets translated and read by other people is a benefit. It’s a plus. But [the Russian writer] is not obliged to ever consider writing about French people or Americans or anybody.
Interviewer: When we were talking earlier about you being or not being in the mainstream, you are sure in the mainstream when it comes to public acclaim.
Toni: I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to know that I have earned a readership that is that large. I stood at the border, stood at the edge, and claimed it as central. Claimed it. And let the rest of the world move over to where I was.
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden proceed into the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall for the Nobel Banquet on 10 December 1993.