According to Houston Baker, Afro-American literature in the United States in the mid-1980s has only recently found legitimacy and acceptance. Many literary historians and critics considered Afro-American literature to be nontraditional in both form and content. In the figure of the conjure-woman, prominent in voodoo ritual, Baker sees an inverted expression of white, bourgeois, traditional literary art; he finds this reversal to be a useful symbol for a better understanding of Afro-American literature.
At the time of this interview, Baker, a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1982-83), was professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
