In these frank and often devastating conversations Nelson Algren reveals himself with all the gruff humor, deflating insight, honesty, and critical brilliance that marked his career. Prodded by H. E.
"If there's an attempt to silence a writer, the best thing a writer can do is not be silenced. If somebody is trying to stifle your voice, you should try and make sure it speaks louder than before."
Although best known for his novels The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles is also a short story writer, a poet, a respected translator, and a prolific essayist. In hi
"When a writer passes through the wall of oblivion, he will even then stop long enough to write something on the wall, like 'Kilroy was here.'" William Faulkner was not keen on giving interviews. Mor
Denise Levertov, American poet and activist, died in December 1997 at the age of 74. This book contains some twenty previously uncollected interviews conducted between the early 1960s and the middle o
Chinua Achebe's books are being read throughout the English-speaking world. They have been translated into more than fifty languages. His publishers estimate that more than eight million copies of his
Intense, controversial, unfailingly clever, V. S. Naipaul has won nearly every major British writing award, including the prestigious Booker Award (in 1971 for In a Free State) and in 1990 was knighte
This book is an exploration of the life and art of Maryse Conde, who first won international acclaim for Segu, a novel about West African experience and the slave trade. Born in Guadeloupe in 1937, Co
Conversations with Pauline Kael brings together roughly half of Kael's published interviews along with a lively debate between Kael and Jean-Luc Godard. Collectively, the interviews provide rewarding
This book brings together almost all of the known interviews Elizabeth Bishop gave over a period of thirty years. Included also are a few selected pieces based on conversations with her. All together
When Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize, he was cited for "a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment." The lively intervie
In the novel that introduced Anne Rice to the world, Interview with the Vampire, a reporter seeks out the facts behind an extraordinary life. In the years since, Anne Rice has created a remarkable and
Here is a collection of interviews that cover the period from 1967 through 1993. Many are translations of interviews that originally appeared in French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, or Swedish pe
As a fiercely independent thinker, Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo Jumbo, Flight to Canada, Reckless Eyeballing, and other works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, is often in conflict with the culture
Having published only one novel, Ralph Ellison gained and retained a reputation as one of America's premier authors. Though urged by his admirers and by critics to write more, at the time of his deat
In a series of stories before, after, and even during neurosurgery, an epileptic patient, Neil; his surgeon, George Ojemann; and neuroscientist William Calvin work together to remove a portion of Neil
For over forty years Saul Bellow has been writing fiction that denounces the destructive forces that have dominated the literature of this century--existential nihilism and historicist pessimism. In n
This collection of interviews with Amiri Baraka, the former LeRoi Jones and a key figure in the worldwide black liberation movement, provides an extraordinary insight not only into African-American l
Paul Bowles says:Each man's life has the quality he gives it, but you can't say that life itself has any qualities. If we suffer, it's because we haven't learned how not to. The man who wrote the book
For more than two decades Richard Wright was interviewed by the American and foreign press, first as the author of Uncle Tom's Children (1938), Native Son (1940), and Black Boy (1945), next as a famou
Out of this collection of twenty-two interviews spanning two decades rises the distinctive voice of "the princess of black poetry." Nikki Giovanni entered the literary world at the height of the Black
This collection of seventeen interviews covers fifty years. Here the eminent author of The Power and the Glory, The Third Man, and The Heart of the Matter speaks of himself, his life, and his works.In
Known today primarily as the author of Our Town, probably America's most beloved and widely produced play, Thornton Wilder is the only writer ever to be honored with Pulitzer Prizes in both fiction an
A collection of interviews with the writer highlights her childhood, her relationships with other women and with men, her aspirations as a writer, her sense of an audience, and her feelings about her
Bernard Malamud gave his first interview in 1958, his last in 1986. During the intervening twenty-eight years he was formally interviewed at least forty times. This book collects twenty-eight of the b
This collection of thirty years of interviews with America's only Nobel Prize dramatist records his encounters with the press and gives a striking portrait of the man and the process of his public myt
"Literary journalist," "lowly social historian," "chronicler of his times," and "champion of realism" are among the many epithets heaped upon Tom Wolfe by himself and his myriad admirers and critics.
With wit, charm, and grace the interviews in this collection demonstrate what readers of Wilbur's poems long have suspected: that this former U.S. poet laureate is no less persuasive and forceful in e
Though he lived most of his life in the remote village of Deya on the island of Mallorca, Robert Graves (1895--1985) was conversant with the most important issues of this century and was acquainted wi
This collection of interviews with James Baldwin covers the period 1961-1987, from the year of the publication of Nobody Knows My Names, his fourth book, to just a few weeks before his death. It inclu
Shelby Foote once said that he did not know of anything he had learned about the writing of novels that couldn't also be applied to the writing of history. In his development, the merging of these spe
"What is most impressive about this book is its intelligence, its sophistication, and its charm. . . . This book presents Piaget's work and his person better than anything else that I know about."--D
