Conversations with Chester Himes

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 the truth comes out as a matter of course. The best a black writer can do is to deal with subjects which are personal, so he can tell how it was for him.