I can only speak for myself. But what I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me, literature is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is. It is an affirmation that sensuality is intelligence, that sensual language is language that makes sense. My response, then, is directed to those who write what I read and to those who read what I read--put concretely--to Toni Morrison and to people who read Toni Morrison (among whom I would count few academics). --Barbara Christian, "The Race for Theory"