Biography & Memoir

Afrikaner poet, painter and dissident Breyten Breytenbach. In 1975, Breytenbach was an anti-apartheid activist in exile. When he made a secret visit to his native South Africa, Breytenbach was arrested, charged for treason, and imprisoned for seven years. In his writing, Breytenbach "alternates outrage at South Africa's governmental policies of apartheid with love for his country and its landscape". Breytenbach's most recent work is "Return to Paradise" (Harcourt Brace).

Drummer and lead vocalist for the rock group The Band, Levon Helm. Helm's Arkansas roots gave the Canadian group an American folk sound. In the 1960's The Band, got it's start backing Bob Dylan. They went on their own in 1968 with "Music From Big Pink." The Band is back with a new album, "Jericho," and a tour. Helm's written a book about The Band called "This Wheel's On Fire" (Morrow).

From 1953 until 1989 Helen Suzman served as an Opposition Member of the South African Parliament. Suzman was a pioneering political leader in the fight against apartheid and anti-semitism. For thirteen years she was the sole representative in the Parliament to reject race discrimination.

Writer Edmund White. He has been called "unquestionably the foremost American gay novelist." White's novels draw significantly from his own experiences in a style he calls "auto-fiction." In his newest book, "Genet: A Biography" (Knopf), White documents the life of controversial French writer, Jean Genet.

Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee discusses her memoir.

Star Trek star William Shatner joins the show to discuss his book "Star Trek Memories."

Morning Edition host Bob Edwards. He's written a new book about his weekly conversations with the former sportscaster Red Barber. Edwards talked with Barber each Friday for 12 years. Barber died a year ago. Terry talks with Edwards about Red Barber and Morning Edition. Edwards' book is "Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship" (Simon & Schuster). (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF)

Morning Edition host Bob Edwards. He's written a new book about his weekly conversations with the former sportscaster Red Barber. Edwards talked with Barber each Friday for 12 years. Barber died a year ago. Terry talks with Edwards about Red Barber and Morning Edition. Edwards' book is "Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship" (Simon & Schuster).

Middle East expert and British hostage in Beirut, Terry Waite. While in Lebanon in 1987, as an Anglican Church envoy to negotiate the release of hostages there, Waite himself was captured. He was held for 1,763 days (nearly five years); four years of that time was spent in solitary confinement. He had made numerous trips to the Middle East to negotiate hostage releases in Tehran and Beirut, and was no stranger to the danger of factional conflicts: in 1969 Waite and his wife narrowly escaped the Idi Amin coup in Uganda.

Poet James Merrill. The son of the founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage house, Merrill took to Europe at age 24, a newly published poet "meaning to stay as long as possible". That was in 1950. His new memoir "A Different Person" (Knopf) details his two and a half years there, and features encounters with psychoanalysts, new and old lovers, and Alice Toklas. Merrill is the author of eleven books of poems, the winner of two National Book Awards, the Bolligen Prize for Poetry, and the Pulitzer Prize.

John Leonard reviews "New York Days" (Little, Brown, & Co.) by Willie Morris.

Terry Anderson and his wife Madeleine Bassil. Anderson was held hostage for seven years in Lebanon. Madeleine was pregnant when he was Anderson's new book, "Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years" (Crown Publishers), Terry and Madeleine describe the challenges they were forced to face until his release in December of 1991. (This interview continues into the second half of the show.)

Correspondent for The New York Times, Malcolm Browne. He has a memoir about his life as a reporter, "Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter's Life." (Times Books). He spent two decades as a foreign correspondent for wire services, newspapers, and magazines. He followed troops in Vietnam, and took the famous photographs of Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire in the streets of Saigon. He won a Pulitzer for his coverage of Viet Nam.

Howell Raines is editorial page editor of "The New York Times." He's written a new "fishing" memoir, that's part sporting autobiography, and part guide-book for the middle years of life. "Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis," (William Morrow & Company). Raines also won the Pulitzer Prize for "Grady's Gift," a New York Times Magazine article about his friendship with a black woman in segregated Birmingham.

Actor James Earl Jones. His is one of the distinctive voices of our time, yet few people know he fights a stutter; Jones' stage work off-Broadway in Jean Genet's "The Blacks" and Athol Fugard's "The Blood Knot" lead to a Broadway success in "The Great White Way", for which Jones won a Tony. His work in August Wilson's "Fences" won him another. It took one day to record the voice track for Darth Vader in "Star Wars": a performance which lead to many other commercial voice-over projects.

Elementary school principal Madeline Cartwright took over the run-down Blaine Elementary School in a run-down, drug-infested neighborhood in North Philadelphia and turned it into a school that works. One of her first acts when she took over the school was to get down on her hands and knees and scrub the foul-smelling children's bathroom.

Two poets, married to one another, coming to grips with illness and mortality: Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon. Hall's new memoir of life on his New Hampshire farm and his "absorbedness" with writing are the subject of his new book "Life Work" (Beacon Press). Halfway through its completion, Hall was diagnosed with liver cancer; the following surgery and recovery provided rich material for his work and Kenyon's: a new book of poems entitled "Constance" (Graywolf Press).

Maureen Corrigan reviews Donald Hall's new book, Life Work and the Mechanical Brides exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York which runs through January 2nd.

Writer Anne Lamott on being a good mother AND a phone addict.

Writer A.E. Hotchner. His memoir, about growing up in a flophouse during the depression, "King of the Hill," is being made into a movie, directed by Stephen Soderbergh (who directed "Sex, Lives, and Videotape). Hotchner is best known for his controversial 1966 biography of his personal friend Ernest Hemingway, "Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir." Presented in the unusual form of dialogue, Hotchner faced criticism from the literary community and an attempt by Hemingway's widow to ban the sale of the book. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)