Walter Mosley
Walter Mosley
Walter Ellis Mosleyis an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles; they are perhaps his most popular works...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 January 1952
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
What I say to myself is, 'I really love these characters and I want to make them as real in the world as I can,'
Literature is the adventure. It's the story, it's the fight, it's people falling in love, it's people with deep personality disorders who succeed anyway beyond themselves. That's what great literature is.
... you should wait until the book is finished before making a judgment on its content. By the time you have gone through twenty drafts, the characters may have developed lives of their own, completely separate from the people you based them on in the beginning. And even if someone, at some time, gets upset with your words - so what? Live your life, sing your song. Anyone who loves you will want you to have that.
We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.
Octavia Butler has been a beacon for thousands of us. This award will continue her legacy making sure that others will find their way to harbor.
What I want to do is give people who've been there a chance to recreate that world and those who've haven't been there a chance to create it, ... For a lot of people, it's an alien land, the world of black Los Angeles.
The reason I'm a writer is because I'm a writer. The reason I'm going through all these different genres is I'm trying to lay out a landscape for black male heroes.
It's 1966, Easy has to come to San Francisco,
It's a black erotic novel 25 percent of it is explicit sex,
Until very recently, ... publishers weren't aware of the fact that African-Americans do so much reading.
My father's life was so decimated by his earliest experiences. His mother died when he was 7 years old, which he always said was the worst experience in his life. When he was 8, his father disappeared and he was on his own from the age of 8.
When I went to school, there were no Black philosophers, at least none that I was aware of, who were recognized by Western universities.
When I turned 59, I looked at that as the first day of my 60th year, so I've been 60 for the last 365 days, in my opinion. So I've been thinking all this year, I'm 60 - this is the time when I need to get some stuff done.
I've written a lot of really good books. Now we'll see if I can write any more good books. I mean there's a chance I won't, but I'm going to try.