Q&A again …

… Zones of Independence: A Conversation with Adam Kirsch - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

When I first thought of being a writer I didn’t think of myself as being a Jewish writer, although I was Jewish obviously and Jewishly educated in certain ways. It seemed that the things I wanted to write about and the things I was interested in were human things. Saying you’re a Jewish writer if you’re writing about love or you’re writing about nature seems irrelevant to a certain degree. And I do still understand that, but I don’t see it as the same kind of restriction anymore. I have come to realize than my experience of the world and of America and ideas and books is affected by being Jewish. It’s better to reckon with that consciously, and I think I became more conscious of it as I got older and moved away from my childhood and upbringing and realized how it did affect me.