Flannery O'Connor explica porquê o Sul tem a literatura dos Estados Unidos que eu mais gosto

Flannery O'Connor

"The problem [...] will be to know how far [the writer] can distort without destroying, and in order not to destroy, he will have to descend far enough into himself to reach those underground springs that give life to big work. This descent into himself will, at the same time, be a descent into his region. It will be a descent through the darkness of the familiar into a world where, like the blind man cured in the gospels, he sees men its if they were trees, but walking. This is the beginning of vision, and I feel it is a vision which we in the South must at least try to understand if we want to participate in the continuance of a vital Southern literature. I hate to think that in twenty years Southern writers too may be writing about men in gray-flannel suits and may have lost their ability to see that these gentlemen are even greater freaks than what we are writing about now. I hate to think of the day when the Southern writer will satisfy the tired reader."
Flannery O'Connor, "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" (1960)