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It's been 15 years since the publication of 's debut novel, , and two years since its Oscar-winning film adaptation, Precious, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, but Precious Jones continues to move and inspire readers. The obese, illiterate teen girl, pregnant with her father's child, is memorable for her resolute pursuit of a better life. Now the boundary-pushing author has penned a quasi-sequel, . The story begins on the morning of Precious's funeral and follows the determined heroine's nine-year-old son, Abdul. Sapphire relates his arduous coming-of-age in this stand-alone novel that is no less emotional than its predecessor. She shares with Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ how and why she gave her new protagonist a voice.

Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ: Why did you return to the story of Precious Jones and her family now? When did you begin work on ?

Sapphire: is not a sequel in a traditional sense, in that we don't enter into and follow up on the life of Precious Jones. It is a sequel in the sense that it continues to look at the profound and devastating effects of AIDS on the African American community. I would posit that AIDS/HIV has hit us as hard as slavery in some ways and that the way AIDS has been dealt with in the black community has been directly related to our disenfranchised position in American society. African American women who were diagnosed with AIDS at the time was being written were many times more likely to be dead within months of their diagnosis than gay white men who were diagnosed at the same time. I believe that was the result of racism—as people like the gay white male activist said things to the effect of, if there is to be a triage for the dispensing of antiviral drugs they should go first to gay white men who have and do contribute so much to society as opposed to poor blacks who don't even know what has hit them. One reason I wrote was to show how "precious" those poor blacks might be if given an opportunity to live. resonates on many levels and has many reasons for being, and indeed one of them is to show the continuing impact of the loss of our "precious" ones.

GR: Jamal Abdul Jones is a challenging character--he is full of rage and often detached from reality. He is less accessible than his mother as a protagonist. Did you feel you were taking a risk in writing this character?

S: Abdul is a sane person to whom insane, inexplicable (to his child's mind), and inhumane things have happened. These experiences fill him with rage. He is not innately filled with rage. His "rage" is protective. It's part of the reason he doesn't lie down and die! These experiences fragment his psyche, and at times we see the extremes of mental processes like denial and dissociation. He says it in the novel, "I feel shattered." Dreaming, denial, and dissociation from reality are coping mechanisms he employs to stay sane, to counter the further defragmentation of his psyche, and to ward off guilt and self-disgust.

Yes, Abdul is filled with rage, but he is also full of life and filled with the desire to learn. He is also filled with that great American desire to be somebody. He is filled with the need for friendship and companionship. He is filled with wonder at the beauty and uniqueness of the world. He's filled with ambition and raw energy, and he's willing to work hard to achieve his dreams!

It was a risk to write about a boy like Abdul. I'm hoping my readers will be risk takers, too. is not an easy read but it offers a look at a life that is for the most part largely invisible to most of us.

GR: By the young age of 13, Abdul appears large enough and mature enough to be a full-grown man. What inspired you to make this choice?

S: Some of this choice was that he was Precious's son, who says of herself, "No one get I'm just twelve!" People thought she was a woman when she was still a child because of her height and weight. So, it would be in the genes, so to speak, for Abdul to be tall and mature physically early. Also a large part of the story would not be possible if he looked like a "kid." He basically is able to pass for an adult, thereby eluding juvenile authorities and the police who could incarcerate him just for being a child without a home.

America's white mainstream Protestant culture, when it is not ridiculing and demonizing the black body, simply erases it, as with the very current study in The New York Times showing that Medicaid kids, even when they had seizure disorders and were newly diagnosed with type one diabetes, were not likely to find a doctor to accept them as new patients, whereas when a white middle-class child with private insurance called the same doctor (after the Medicaid kids had called and been turned down) they were accepted. The black and brown, and I might add poor, body might as well not exist. As an author, my characters' bodies become bigger than life so they can be seen. A white man I work with said he had a hard time looking at Gabourey Sidibe in the film Precious. And this is in a movie in which she is the star! Imagine what he doesn't see in the street, cleaning his house, checking out his groceries, or anywhere for that matter.

GR: is told with a stream-of-consciousness style with plenty of vernacular. How did you find Abdul's voice? Did you experiment with different kinds of narration?

S: Whenever I get "stuck" with first-person narration I often will write the story out in third person and see what I get. I'll then take that back in and write the story over again in first person.

In this book we stay with Abdul much longer than we stayed with Precious. We see Precious change because she becomes literate. At nine Abdul reads better than his mother did at 18. What we see with him is a young man growing through his exposure to art and other artists. He, as we say in the African American community, "runs the streets." He observes life, he reads biography, fiction, black cultural criticism: . He goes to art exhibits, has a lover of another race. So as his experiences changed I had to allow his voice to change. He is comfortable in the black English his mother spoke but disdains the deep southern dialect of his great-grandmother. He speaks easily, being somewhat of an autodidact, with upper- and middle-class kids who are wanna-be artists like himself. He is an educated young urban artist. I didn't want to back away from that aspect of his being, either.

Precious's voice presented me with one set of challenges, Abdul's presented me with another. One of the hardest challenges was to keep the reader connected and knowing that this was a good kid who at times did bad things. I didn't want the reader to dump Abdul, I wanted them to like this kid.

GR: Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Author writes, " cast light on the almost-never-talked-about experience of the abused child. Do you feel a calling to write about/for those who are marginalized in society?"

S: Yes, and why not? Why not use your talent to try to make things better? Much of the history of African American writing, especially the African American and African Caribbean slave narratives, is one in which the marginalized were given a voice.

GR: Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ member writes, "Your writing has been referred to in reviews and book circles as being really heavy and intense. What do you make of these labels, and why do you feel it's important to tell these stories about African American life?"

S: Well, labels even when there is some truth in them are limiting. As an artist I would prefer not to be labeled, but there is not much I can do about being labeled so I don't give it a lot of energy. This is the job of literature, to tell stories. Some people can handle them, some can't. For some people the truth will always be a comfort no matter how hard it is.

GR: Describe a typical day spent writing. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

S: I write in the morning and do whatever else I have to do after that. If I have to teach or am taking a class myself in the morning, I try to write in the afternoon. Unusual habits? Well, I actually consider writing to be an unusual habit!

GR: What authors, books, or ideas have influenced you?

S: by , (, , , ), (, ), (, ), , (, , , ), , (), , (, ), (, ), (), (), (), (, ), , (), , (), , (, ), , (), (, ), (), , and so many more...

GR: What are you reading now?

S: (1848) by and (2011) by .