N. K. Jemisin Quotes

N. K. Jemisin

Profession : Writer

Birth : September 19, 1972

Knowing about authors' beliefs helps you understand how those beliefs influence their writing, and things you thought meant one thing, once you've got enough information about that writer, you suddenly realize mean an entirely different thing. That makes a difference.

N. K. Jemisin

Reconciliation is a part of the healing process, but how can there be healing when the wounds are still being inflicted?

N. K. Jemisin

I tend to write society as I see and understand it.

N. K. Jemisin

I was raised to be very wary of the police. I was raised to stay away from them unless you absolutely have to. Because they're dangerous.

N. K. Jemisin

Magic is the mysteries into which not everyone is so lucky, or unlucky, as to be initiated. It can be affected by belief, the whims of the unseen, harsh language. And it is not. Supposed. To make. Sense. In fact, I think it's coolest when it doesn't.

N. K. Jemisin

I've always believed that as an artist, as a writer, you need a lot of contact with other people to make your art good.

N. K. Jemisin

My first series, the 'Inheritance' trilogy, in the first book, you were dealing with a woman of color from an impoverished culture, being brought up among wealthy, privileged white people and having to cope and perform in ways that she has not been raised to do, and that was obviously drawn from some personal experiences.

N. K. Jemisin

All people who grew up with science fiction and fantasy and horror went through the whole acculturation process of the genre. We were all told to read the golden age writers. We were all told Heinlein and Asimov and all these straight, white males, although some of them were Jewish.

N. K. Jemisin

I would love to just write and not have everything I say or do turn into a political battle.

N. K. Jemisin

Readers seem to really like the fact that what I'm writing is not traditional fantasy.

N. K. Jemisin

It takes practice to do anything unique within this field, period, in writing, practice doing anything unique in writing.

N. K. Jemisin

It's human nature that we come in our own flavours, and it doesn't make any sense to write a monochromatic or monocultural story unless you're doing something extremely small - a locked room-style story.

N. K. Jemisin

I think the people who believe that works can and always should be divorced from the context are people who have the privilege to do so.

N. K. Jemisin

A fantasy novel set in something other than medieval Europe, featuring an almost entirely black cast, is considered risky.

N. K. Jemisin

As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change.

N. K. Jemisin

With epic fantasy, there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack.

N. K. Jemisin

I don't really understand why so many fantasy writers choose to focus on worlds that just seem strangely denuded. But to them, I guess it doesn't seem strange. And I guess that's their privilege. It isn't mine.

N. K. Jemisin

I think most fiction focuses on uncomfortable settings because that's interesting.

N. K. Jemisin

In the 'Dreamblood' books, I'm focusing more on what I like about epic fantasy: the layering and depth of tension; the chance to really delve into the minutia of an alternate society and its politics; a large cast of characters to love and hate.

N. K. Jemisin

Reconciliations are for after the violence has ended.

N. K. Jemisin