{"id":107939,"date":"2017-02-21T17:53:05","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T22:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=107939"},"modified":"2017-02-22T08:36:55","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T13:36:55","slug":"maya-angelou-with-george-plimpton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/maya-angelou-with-george-plimpton\/","title":{"rendered":"Maya Angelou with George Plimpton"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tonight PBS\u2019s American Masters<\/em> series debuts \u201cMaya Angelou: And Still I Rise<\/a>,\u201d the first-ever feature documentary on the writer.<\/p>\n

The Paris Review<\/em>\u2019s George Plimpton, himself the star of a 2014\u00a0American Masters<\/em> documentary<\/a>, interviewed Angelou onstage at 92Y in\u00a01988. That conversation laid the groundwork for Angelou\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, which appeared in our Fall 1990 issue. But the audio from that night at 92Y\u00a0is worth listening to in its own right\u2014it finds both of them in rare form. As Plimpton wrote, Angelou\u2019s \u201cpresence dominated the proceedings. Many of her remarks drew fervid applause, especially those which reflected her views on racial problems, the need to persevere, and \u2018courage.\u2019 She is an extraordinary performer and has a powerful stage presence.\u201d <\/p>\n

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool\u2014and I\u2019m not any of those\u2014to say that I don\u2019t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues \u2026\u00a0In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats\u2014maybe it\u2019s imperative that we encounter the defeats\u2014but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike. There\u2019s no real mystique. Every human being, every Jew, Christian, backslider, Muslim, Shintoist, Zen Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, every human being wants a nice place to live, a good place for the children to go to school, healthy children, somebody to love, the courage, the unmitigated gall to accept love in return, someplace to party on Saturday or Sunday night, and someplace to perpetuate that God. There\u2019s no mystique. None. And if I\u2019m right in my work, that\u2019s what my work says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Listen to their hour-long exchange below. We owe these recordings to a generous gift in memory of Christopher Lightfoot Walker, who worked in the art department at The Paris Review<\/em> and volunteered as an archivist at 92Y\u2019s Unterberg Poetry Center.<\/p>\n