Conversations with Margaret Walker

Description

I read somewhere in Newsweek where Margaret Walker is one of those moral writers and that is supposed to be a form of derision. But to me, I could not have a greater compliment." Margaret Walker (1915-1998) began her writing career as a poet in the late 1930s. But she was cast into the limelight in 1966 when her novel Jubilee was published to wide critical and commercial acclaim. In interviews ranging from 1972 to 1996, Conversations with Margaret Walker captures Walker's voice as she discusses an incredibly wide range of interests. The same erudition, wit, and love of language on display in Jubilee comes through in conversations, as well as her sense of moral authority--imbued by a resonant Christian humanism--and her attention to historical detail. In a long 1972 conversation with fellow poet Nikki Giovanni, Walker argues about the tribulations and triumphs of motherhood, the presence of black women in literature, and race relations in American culture from 1900 to the present. With Marcia Greenlee in 1977, she talks extensively about her family's history and her love of botany. In several of the interviews, her friendship with Richard Wright rises to the forefront. Even in her interviews with Claudia Tate and John Griffin Jones, in which the interviewers try to direct the conversations toward the mechanics and thought processes behind Walker's writing, the talks often sweep into broader issues of African American culture, family history, and the past's influence on the present. This collection amply shows that Margaret Walker was a writer who considered her work to be deeply influenced by the culture around her. She viewed her writing as part of her larger life and not separate or distanced from her existence. Bracingly direct, witty, and oddly charming, the writer in Conversations with Margaret Walker is complicated, passionate, forceful, and piercingly intelligent. Maryemma Graham, a professor of English at the University of Kansas, is the co-editor of Conversations with Ralph Ellison (University Press of Mississippi). She also edited How I Wrote Jubilee and Other Essays on Life and Literature by Margaret Walker, and On Being Female, Black and Free: Essays by Margaret Walker, 1932�1992.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Similar books

• 

  Conversations with Margaret Walker

  By Margaret Walker

  Conversations with Margaret Walker

• 

  A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker

  By Nikki Giovanni, Margaret Walker

  "A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret walker" is a lively, impassioned, and intense meeting of two literary giants. It is also a caring and yet uninhibited dialogue...

• 

  Mississippi Writers Talking: Interviews with Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Willie Morris, Margaret Walker Alexander, James Whitehead, Turner Cassity

  By John Griffin Jones

  Mississippi Writers Talking: Interviews with Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Willie Morris, Margaret Walker Alexander, James Whitehead, Turner Cassity

• 

  Conversations with Nikki Giovanni

  By Nikki Giovanni

  From her conversation with James Baldwin, an interview that first aired on the television program Soul!, later published as A Dialogue.

• 

  The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker

  By Maryemma Graham

  Walker read “For My People” before 1,500 people, the largest audience she'd had to that point. When she saw him, she wasted no time going over to thank him graciously. He was surprised that such a small woman in stature could have such ...

• 

  A Study Guide for Margaret Walker's "Lineage"

  By CENGAGE Learning, Gale

  ... Conversations with Margaret Walker, University Press of Mississippi, 2002. In this book is a collection of interviews of Margaret Walker, covering the years 1972 to 1996. One of the interviews includes a dialogue between Walker and the ...

• 

  Jubilee

  By Margaret Walker

  A novel based on the life of the author's great-grandmother follows the story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, through the years of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

• 

  Fields Watered with Blood: Critical Essays on Margaret Walker

  By Margaret Walker

  I talk about what's wrong with Constance Webb's book and Fabre's book. Fabre's book was written in the shadow ofthe widow. She determined what should go in that book. He was indebted to her. He wanted to please her.

• 

  This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems

  By Margaret Walker

  Addressing the literature and culture of black America, This Is My Century, first published in 1989, marked a significant contribution to American poetry, bringing together Walker’s selection of one hundred of her own poems.

• 

  Jubilee

  By Margaret Walker

  Jubilee