Get Out Monday: Colson Whitehead @ SAL

In preparation for his upcoming visit, Seattlest sat down and emailed four fairly inane questions to the novelist, essayist, and MacArthur genius Colson Whitehead. It's true: we could have tried asking Whitehead insightful questions about his brilliant novels The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, and Apex Hides the Hurt, but we figured, everyone tries to do that and he winds up getting asked them same question over and over again. So instead, we asked him about Barack Obama, why people don't read, and why he seems to like Portland better than Seattle. Anyone wanting more insight into the great writer's work should get tickets to his Monday, Jan. 14 appearance at Benaroya for Seattle Arts & Lectures.

Many interviewers have basically asked you, "Hmm...you're black and you've written a non-protest novel. Why did you do that?" Do you take it as a success that your work seems to push boundaries? Or I am totally misinterpreting things?

You’re probably overstating it a bit, but yeah, that’s there. People do seem surprised sometimes that I don’t write what they expect a black writer should write…whatever that is. But this is a country where the biggest compliment some people can give Barack Obama is that he’s articulate. And "clean"! I don’t think that I push boundaries, I just try to write stuff that seems interesting and compelling to me, and will be fun and challenging to execute. When I started writing fiction in the mid-90s, I was trying to avoid certain trendy forms for young writers, from the novel of Gen-X malaise to the novel of black urban realness. But that was before I found my voice and I don’t have those sort of anxieties anymore.

Literacy's a hot topic these days. Does the idea that people just aren't reading concern you? Or is it a sign of something else (class, race, mass cultural hegemony)? Is there something we should be doing?

There’s not much I can do about it besides write the best books I can write, so, no, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. (Well, I guess I visit schools and talk to the youngsters about writing and what not, but that’s fun stuff and gets me out of the house.) It’s always been tough for writers. It always will be. I’ve been fortunate that people have responded to my work. Might not always be the case. I have enough demons that I don’t want to waste time worrying about larger cultural trends I can’t control. All I can do is try to write some good stuff.