In 1972 Rudolfo Anaya made a quiet entry into American literature with the publication of "Bless Me, Ultima." Over the span of twenty-two years, by word of mouth alone, this first novel sold more than 300,000 copies. It was the first Chicano novel to enter the American literary canon, and it helped identify Abaya as one of the founders of Chicano literature.

In this collection of interviews Anaya talks about his life and about how New Mexico, his home state, influences his work. The interviews explore also the importance that myths and spiritual matters play in his writings. He shares his intimate knowledge of the long struggle of ethnic writers to gain acceptance by mainstream publishers. Anaya also speaks eloquently and passionately of his faith in Chicano literature and of the politics of "hate, prejudice, and bigotry" that minorities face throughout the United States. Yet he remains consistent in his call for all Americans to understand one another. For three decades he has been a tireless agent in the push for multiculturalism and pluralism in America.

Anaya is a professor emeritus of English and creative writing at the University of New Mexico. Besides his critically acclaimed novels ("Bless Me, Ultima, Heart of Aztlan, Tortuge, Alburquerque, Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall," and "Jalamanata"), he has written plays, poems, essays, short stories, and books for children.

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 that appears to have a compulsive need to cage its artists and intellectuals in worn-out cliches and labels. As a writer who experiments in many forms and genres, and one who embraces postmodernism rather than protest and naturalism, Reed defies popular conceptions of what American writers, particularly black American male writers, should be or do.

In this collection of candid interviews, Reed discusses how critics, especially from the northeastern establishment have consistently marginalized African American writers by placing them in the "either-or thing of Christianity and Communism." As he does in his writing, Reed uses invective, satire, and humor to show how those people judging American literature "have made no attempt to understand recent American writing."

Bruce Dick is a professor English and African American studies at Appalachian State University. Amritjit Singh is a professor of English at Rhode Island College and co-editor of "Postcolonial Theory and the United States, " published by University Press of Mississippi in 2000.