Literary Figures

Mason completed over a thousand combat missions in Vietnam and later served time for a drug smuggling. His debut memoir, Chickenhawk, found success while he was in prison. Mason's new, science-fiction inspired novel is called Weapon.

Lopate embraced the essay form only after writing novels and short stories. The writer explores diverse, sometimes provocative topics in his personal writing like sexuality and suicide.

Gordimer returns to Fresh Air to discuss her new collection of essays called The Essential Gesture, about her role as a white woman in South Africa fighting against Apartheid.

Sendak illustrated a version of a recently-discovered Grimm story, about a girl named Mili who loses her mother during a war. Sendak, best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, often incorporates difficult subjects like death and divorce into his children's books.

Mitford grew up in a wealthy English family. She cultivated her leftist politics early in life, and became an anti-fascist activist. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her relationship with the Communist Party during the McCarthy era, her early book about the death industry, and growing older.

Playwright and novelist Ntzoake Shange, best known for her play For Colored Girls, joins Fresh Air to talk about the diversity of the black experience, her childhood and early education, and the criticism she sometimes gets from black male authors and playwrights. Her new play is called Betsey Brown.

Peter Conrad studied in Englad on a Rhodes scholarship, but grew up in Tasmania -- an island once used as an Australian penal colony. His new memoir, about his return to his home country, is called Behind the Mountain.

Writer, photographer and teacher MARGARET RANDALL. For 23 years, she lived throughout Latin and Central America, writing about the people, and in particular the lives of the women. She has published almost 50 books of poetry, prose and oral history. Since her return to the United States from an extended stay in Latin America, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been trying to deport her. Randall and her supporters claim that is because Randall's writing is sharply critical of government policy in Central America.

Naipaul was born to Indian Hindu parents in Trinidad. His international perspective has informed both his fiction and nonfiction, which are often set in post-colonial countries. His newest book, A Turn in the South, explores the culture of the United States' Southern states.

Humor writer Alfred Gingold's newest book, The House Trap, highlights his misadventures buying a house with his wife.