Discipline: Literature, Cultural Studies
Interviews with writers have been hailed as a new "literary genre" in itself, perhaps a term that lends dignity to a recent obsession, almost obscene in the intensity of its probing, to unearth Revelation, Fact and Trivia in biographies and autobiographies of people both great and never-heard-of. Interviews with writers may, however, be a task a shade more delicate because of the very nature of the subject matter: the writer in stylistic deshabille.