An Interview with Maurice Carlos Ruffin on THE RUMPUS

Maurice Carlos Ruffin: We’re such a storied city, but there haven’t been many people who’ve published short stories about it on a national level, so subconsciously, I was thinking about representing the city and the different ways it manifests itself. In Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex and Toni Morrison’s Sula the community is a character. In Middlesex, it’s Detroit and in Morrison’s work, her fictional county, like Faulkner’s, makes its people. I wanted to give as much breadth to the city as possible and in ways not stereotypical or clichéd. I know the neighborhoods and the people, but I asked myself, Who am I not seeing? I’m trying to draw those characters and give them the leads.

Interview by ERIK GLEIBERMANN
November 23rd, 2021, THE RUMPUS