The author is one of the great black writers of America and is director of the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Washington,a Guggenheim fellow,and fiction editor of the Seattle review,other novels include "The Sourcer's Apprentice"/Faith and the Good Thing"/etc.the former a Pen/Faulkener nomination.In this long awaited book the author locates the space occupied by the black writer within Western inellectual tradition and US society.this history includes coming to terms with a previous generation-R Wright/J Baldwin/R Ellison-whose work is simultaeously a force of inspiration and suffocation.In this perceptive anaylysis of the works of Toni Morrison/Alice Walker/Paule Marshall/David Bradley/Ishmael Reed/Clarence Major etc..