The interviews in this volume--two of which have never before been published--stretch over a period of forty years. They address a wide range of topics, including the importance of diary-keeping to his life and work; the interplay between fiction and autobiography; his turning from Christianity to
Chester Himes says: I guess the only place I am at home, really at home, is in Harlem, but I could never possibly live there. My mind is shattered by the injustice of it. My books are set in the Negro ghetto. . . . But I don't strain after authenticity when I write them. I tell it like it is, and
