Terry Gross

Journalist and mystery writer Jon Katz. Katz is a media critic, . formerly for Rolling Stone and now for New York Magazine. First in Katz's "Death by Station Wagon" (Bantam) and now in his newly released "The Family Stalker" (Doubleday), soft boiled detective hero Kit Deleeuw cruises the streets of a fictional suburban community on crime-solving forays in his Volvo station wagon. Deleeuw lost his Wall Street job in the 80's.

South African journalist John Matisonn. Matisonn is white and grew up in the suburbs in Johannesburg. (His grandparents emigrated to South Africa at the turn of the century). To NPR listeners he's best known for his coverage from South Africa from 1986 to 1991. Matisonn also worked in Washington, D.C. He's now the head of elections for the South Africa Broadcasting Company, SABC, (which before the end of apartheid, broadcast purely government propaganda).

Psychologist Mary Pipher has worked mostly with teenage girls for over ten years.

Excerpt from an interview with Desmond Tutu. (Rebroadcast of 05/15/1984).

Film Critic Stephen Schiff reviews the new film "Backbeat" directed by Iain Softley. It is a reenactment of the early days of the Beatles . . . before they were stars.

Journalist and author Allister Sparks. Sparks is a fifth- generation South African. He heads the Johannesburg Institute for the Advancement of Journalism. In 1990, he published his historical study of South Africa called "The Mind of South Africa" (Knopf). His recent piece in "The New Yorker," called "The Secret Revolution" (April 11, 1994, p.56), reveals the little known, behind the scenes drama that started unfolding within South Africa almost 10 years ago.

History professor and author R. Laurence Moore. His new book is "Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture." (Oxford) Moore explores the relationship between spiritualism and consumerism in this country over a two-century span. He develops his theses with examples from the lives as such American personalities as P. T. Barnum, Cecil B. DeMille and Sylvester Graham, inventor of the Graham cracker.

Musician and television composer Mike Post.

James Fallows. He's the Washington Editor for the "Atlantic Monthly" and the author of a new book, "Looking at the Sun" (Pantheon). Fallows examines new political and economic systems that have arisen in East Asia which challenge Western principles of capitalism and democracy. Fallows argues the impact of Asia on the West has been hidden by America's false perception about the "success" of individual enterprise and rights in the area.

Dumisani Kumalo grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, and fled the country in the 1970s. Kumal is back in the country to act as a monitor for South Africa's upcoming elections.
Jennifer Irish is a human rights activist who is not optimistic about the elections. Irish is coordinator for the Network of Independent Monitors which is tracking election related violence.