Terry Gross

John McWhorter's newest book is called The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language. He has written on Ebonics, language and African Americans, and the origins of the Creole Language. His other books include Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America and Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of 'Pure' Standard English. McWhorter is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Writer Gary Paulsen is a prolific writer of children's books. He began writing over 30 years ago, when he was coming to terms with his alcoholism. For many years he and his wife lived in poverty in rural Minnesota. This changed when Paulsen won the Newbery Award for children's fiction in 1985 with Dogsong, about running the Iditarod. Paulsen's children's books often deal with adventurous youths who triumph over adversity in the wilderness. This interview first aired Oct. 6, 1992.

Filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami is a scholar of Iranian film. His two documentaries are Dreams Betrayed and Friendly Persuasion: Iranian Cinema After the Revolution. Together, they explore Iranian filmmaking before and after the 1979 revolution. In Iranian films, male and female characters are not allowed to touch, ever, and women must be veiled at all times. Despite these and other limitations, Iranian cinema has garnered international critical acclaim. Akrimi is an associate professor at William Paterson University.