Synopsis These animated conversations with contemporary American authors foreground in their frankness and energy, the powerful dynamic that relates society, polity, art and ideas to the making of the American mind. These figures--alert to the events and challenges surrounding them--often address the variable human factor in the inequities of power within the United States and its relationship to the rest of the world. Together, they provide an intimate and distinctive portrait of how living American writers view themselves in a world that both frightens and excites them immensely. In his Foreword to the book, Prof. Morris Dickstein, Distinguished Professor of English at City University New York, states: “Dr. Ghosh’s engaging colloquies with each of these varied figures bring to mind the work of journalist Studs Terkel, who has spent a lifetime talking to ordinary and extraordinary Americans, and the celebrated interviews with writers that have appeared in the Paris Review over the past half century.”