Government & Politics

Language commentator Geoff Nunberg tries to untangle the convoluted syntax of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Playwright Marsha Norman's first novel The Fortune Teller, about missing children and abortion, adopts a freewheeling, almost primitive approach to narrative. Critic John Leonard says unconventional structure works.

The exiled Chilean writer believes that her stories keep the memories of her family alive. Her new book is called Of Love and Shadows.

The Frontline documentary, about the conflict between MOVE activists and the Philadelphia Police, will be broadcast this week throughout the country -- except for Philadelphia, which has a mayoral primary. TV critic David Bianculli reviews the program and questions why the broadcast has been delayed in the region.

ABC reporter Sam Donaldson is known for his loud, often aggressive manner of questioning President Reagan during press conferences and other news events. He believes his style is necessary, especially considering Reagan's predilection for secluding himself from the media.

Nadine Gordimer's newest novel, A Sport of Nature, follows a white anti-apartheid worker as she traverses a complicated terrain of sex, race, and politics.

Pat Conroy's abusive father tried to groom him for a career in the Marines. Conroy instead became a novelist who incorporates autobiographical details into his fiction.

Sydney Biddle Barrows' call girl service was shut down in 1984. She now has a memoir about her life as a madam. Barrows joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about how she recruited and managed the young women who worked for her.

White anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman identifies ways in which recent reforms passed by the South African government have led to some desegregation. She believes that the recent sanctions advocated by the Reagan administration will have little impact on her home country's racist policies.

Anand Nagar, which translates into the City of Joy, is one of the most densely-populated slums in Calcutta. In order to learn more about how people survive in dire poverty, French writer Dominique LaPierre and his wife lived in a hovel alongside the neighborhood's residents. His book about the experience, called The City of Joy, has just been released in paperback.

The Nobel Prize-winning writer's formative experiences were informed by war in Eastern Europe, an itinerant childhood, and American novels and films. He has lived in the United States since 1960.

Before becoming a writer, Higgins was a journalist and lawyer--two career paths which have strongly influenced his style as a fiction author.

Veteran football player Rosey Grier never imagined a life in sports, but his imposing figure helped him distinguish himself in the NFL. Later in life, he worked as a bodyguard for Bobby Kennedy, and was present when the presidential candidate was assassinated.

Chilean-American writer Ariel Dorfman has recently published a number of articles critical of his home country's repressive government.

Philadelphia Inquirer Africa correspondent Robert Rosenthal was arrested and tortured while reporting in Uganda. He describes the experience to Fresh Air host Terry Gross.

Lawyer Alan Dershowitz is known for representing figures like Nazis and pornographers in court. His new book, Reversal of Fortune, details the trial of aristocrat Claus von Bulow, who was accused of murdering his wife. Dershowitz secured von Bulow's acquittal.

White House counsel John Ehrlichman was among many in the Nixon administration who served time for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. He has since become a writer, publishing a memoir and several novels.

Crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, describes the heists and scams of a mid-level mobster.

Nat Hentoff writes about jazz and civil liberties, but describes his profession as "being a troublemaker." Hentoff began collecting jazz records and hanging out in jazz clubs as a young adult, and later hosted a jazz radio show and edited a magazine before co-founding the Jazz Review, a journal of criticism. Hentoff currently writes a column for the Village Voice and his subjects are often the First Amendment or civil liberties, and he is a staunch defender of free speech. His latest book, "Boston Boy," is a memoir about growing up in Chicago and Boston.

Albert Race Sample's autobiography "Racehoss: Big Emma's Boy" describe his experiences growing up as the son of a black prostitute and gambler and one of her white clients. Sample later ended up in "Retrieve" a unit of the Texas Prison System, which Race describes as sadistic.