Writer’s Corner: Finding Out What You Don’t Want to Know

By the time James Baldwin gave this interview to The Paris Review in 1984, his time was past as one of the writers whose voice was loudest in the great postwar arguments over what America would and should be. He was living in semi-exile in France at the time of the interview, heading into his 60s, but still full of burnt truthsand hard-fought advice. Such as:

“The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces...