Description

Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Samuel Delany at his apartment in 1983 in the upper West Side of Manhattan (with considerable traffic noise). The interview begins with a discussion of science fiction, why Delany writes it and what it can do with language that more mundane fiction is unable to do. Delany notes that language that is considered metaphorical in more mundane fiction can be literal in science fiction. The interview begins with specific questions about the formal experimentation in The Einstein Intersection and quickly moves to the general, discussing experimentation in Delany’s fiction and in science fiction in general. Throughout the three and a half hour interview, questions continually return to specific points in Delany’s fiction, ranging from questions about whether he would ever write “mundane fiction” (only as an exercise), whether science fiction can do what other writing forms cannot (yes, and when things are censored based on an idea it is usually because of poor prose not the subject itself), what it is like to be one of the few black science fiction writers (Delany likens it to a clubhouse that does not allow others until the others simply break down the door and announce they are there) and the use and place of autobiography in fiction (Delany, in an answer very similar to John Irving's from four years before in an interview not published by this time, mentions that among his writing students, the worst writing are the parts where the students claim it comes straight from real life). They then discuss gender and sexuality. The interview continues with discussions of Delany’s dyslexia and its influence on both language and character. A small portion of Delany’s answer on race is excerpted in Volume 15, Issue 1 of Fiction International. An edited version of the entire interview is included in McCaffery and Gregory’s book Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s, 1987, University of Illinois Press, p 83-110. A different edited version of the entire interview is included in McCaffery's book Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers, 1990, University of Illinois Press, p 71-104.