SOURCE: "Fighting Talk," in New Statesmen & Society, April 21, 1995, pp. 16-8.

In the following interview, Dworkin discusses formative events in her life, her writings, and her views on pornography and free speech.

[Michael Moorcock:] You were born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1946, had an admired father, went to a progressive school, led the familiar bohemian life of the 1960s, were active in protest politics, were arrested and received unexpectedly brutal treatment—but not as brutal as being a battered wife, stranded in Amsterdam with your monstrous husband, a political radical. Pretty traumatic stuff, yet you remain, I think, fundamentally an optimist.

[Andrea Dworkin:] Optimism is what you do, how you live. I write, which is a quintessential act of optimism. It sometimes means the triumph of faith over experience, a belief in communication, in community, in change, and, for me, in beauty. The power and beauty of language. I...