Edward P. Jones
Edward P. Jones
Edward Paul Jonesis an American novelist and short story writer. His 2003 novel The Known World received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
afford catholic education hurt
My father was Catholic, and my mother wanted me to go to Catholic school. That's what I did in first grade. But she couldn't afford the payments. I think it must have hurt her a lot, not to be able to give me a Catholic education.
best english good literature moments
'Jane Eyre,' when I think of that book, it conjures up the best moments of college English courses. Literature is extraordinary, especially when you have a good professor.
figured places raised san streets whatever
It just so happens that I was born and raised in Washington. Had I been born in Chicago or San Antonio, the streets and places would have figured into whatever I wrote. Just so happens that it's Washington, D.C.
fourteen
I never like to put myself in the stories; in 'Lost in the City,' there are fourteen stories, and there's only one, 'The First Day,' about a little girl going to school, that has anything to do with me.
believe people pull
People seem to have trouble with the imagination. They can't believe that you can just pull things out of your brain like that.
My mother relied on her memory to do things because she couldn't read. Part of that was not really knowing numbers.
I write a lot in my head. I've never been driven to write things down.
I don't want to own something that you can't take into your apartment at night.
believe might particular
I don't believe that there is any particular book that influenced any 'career' I might have.
home
I'm not afraid of my own company. I was made to be at home.
caused climate happened people perhaps system time
Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people.
aunt bill civil cousins passed rights south stay swim
In the summer of 1964, my sister and I went to South Ballston, Virginia, to stay with my aunt and her kids. They passed the civil rights bill that summer; my cousins were so happy because now they could swim in the pool.
came dungeon guard hundred illiterate meals paper sentence sincerity spare thrown twice
I have said with as much sincerity as I can muster that if I were thrown into a dungeon with a sentence of one hundred years, with my only company being an illiterate guard who came twice a day with meals but who never spoke, I would still write - on coarse toilet paper in the dark if I could spare it.
family takes using
I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder.