SOURCE: Johnson, Charles, and Jonathan Little. “An Interview with Charles Johnson.” Contemporary Literature 34, no. 2 (summer 1993): 159-81.

In the following interview, originally conducted in 1992, Johnson discusses his body of work in relation to the Black Arts Movement, issues of cultural and racial identity, and African-American literature as a whole.

Like his narrator in Middle Passage (1990), Charles Johnson charts a course through the vexed and volatile issues of multiculturalism and racial politics in America. The rush of publicity Johnson received after his best-selling novel Middle Passage won the National Book Award in 1990 drew attention to his versatile and prolific career as a cartoonist, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and screenwriter. Whatever the medium, Johnson continues to address the charged philosophical questions surrounding cultural and individual racial identity.

Johnson began his artistic career with two collections of political cartoons lampooning American race relations, Black Humor (1970) and Half-Past Nation-Time (1972). His interests then...