SOURCE: Reed, Ishmael, and Clifford Thompson. “Call Him Ishmael.” Black Issues Book Review 5, no. 1 (January-February 2003): 40-4.

In the following interview, Reed discusses his past, his body of work, and his opinions regarding fiction and feminism.

I had the feeling, as I prepared to interview Ishmael Reed, that the 64-year-old writer would turn out to be much more mellow and friendly in conversation than his nine novels, four books of nonfiction, five poetry collections and five plays might indicate. (I was right.) But I was only about ninety percent sure of that, and as I punched in his phone number it was the other ten percent that had me worried.

Consider the expression on his face as it appears on the cover of his new book of essays, Another Day at the Front: Dispatches for the Race War. He is looking askance at something or someone, his eyelids slightly...