John Wisniewski: Ishmael, your mother actually wrote a book. Could you tell us about this? What inspired you to become an author?
Ishmael Reed: My mother, Thelma V. Reed, wrote a book called Black Girl From Tannery Flats. The book is about her growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and how she became part of the migration to the North. Though her book was praised, she saw her greatest achievement as that of organizing two strikes, single-handedly, that benefited her fellow Black women workers. That’s why it was disappointing to see her slandered by Alice Walker, leader of an anti-Semitic womanist cult in a book called Gathering Blossoms Under Fire, published by Simon & Schuster. My late mother wrote as well as Walker, but she didn’t have a powerful patron like Gloria Steinem to promote her book. Toni Morrison said Gloria Steinem was responsible for the success of The Color Purple.
Regarding what inspired my writing, I found that for Black people, it’s one way we can express ourselves in a society where others tell our stories and define us. The late Bill Moyers said that the opinion industry was dominated by “straight white men.” He’s right.
I was sixteen when I was published by the great A.J. Smitherman, a leader in a revolt against lynching in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921. I was a printer’s devil at his Buffalo newspaper, The Empire Star.
JW: Are there any authors who have influenced you?
IR: I’ve been influenced by authors, musicians, and painters. My novel, Flight To Canada, was influenced by two Black writers, Henry Bibb and William Wells Brown. They were former slaves who escaped from the plantation. The book, for which I coined the term “Neo Slave Narrative,” was seen as a commercial failure when it was published. Scribner’s will publish the 50th anniversary edition of the book in 2026.
JW: You are also a musician playing what you called “Conjure” music. Have you always liked Jazz music?
IR: Kip Hanrahan, head of the recording company American Clavé, asked leading Jazz musicians to compose music based on poetry and songs found in my book of poetry, Conjure, published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1972. In 1982, there was a concert at the Public Theater in New York. Three CDs (“Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed, 1984 &1995,” was made by the musicians who participated in the Public Theater concert; followed by “Conjure: Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon, 1988 & 1995”; and “Conjure Bad Mouth, 2005”) were produced by American Clavé as a result of the collaboration, and there have been concerts in Europe, England and Japan. The last performance was at the Sardinia Jazz Festival in 2012.
At the age of 60, I began studying Jazz piano. In 2005, I produced my first Jazz album, “For All We Know” (Konch Records, 2007) with The Ishmael Reed Quintet consisting of Roger Glenn, flutist, Carla Blank on violin, Chris Planas on guitar, myself on piano, and featuring David Murray, the tenor saxophonist. Since then, I have produced my own compositions on “The Hands of Grace,” (Konch Records, 2022) again featuring flutist Roger Glen, Carla Blank, with poet Tennessee Reed. The title piece was inspired by designer Grace Wales Bonner. “The Jazz Martyrs” is about to be released to Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Michael Enchaniz performs my original composition on piano. David Murray performs on the saxophone as I read the poem “The Jazz Martyrs.” I was inspired to write this poem upon learning that some of our great Jazz musicians didn’t reach the age of 40.
I also produced the CD “Blues Lyrics by Ishmael Reed,” (Konch Records, 2023) accompanied by the West Coast Caravan of All Stars, featuring Ronnie Stewart and David Murray. I’m composing more music. Through David, I have had Gregory Porter, Cassandra Wilson, Macy Gray, and Bobby Womack perform my songs.
JW: What was the reaction to Mumbo Jumbo, your first book?
IR: Mumbo Jumbo was also considered a commercial failure when it was published in 1972. Its 50th anniversary was observed in 2022 with a special edition published by Scribner Books. The headline of the book is that there is something about Black culture that causes mass hysteria, whether it be Rock and Roll, a term used by Zora Neale Hurston in 1934, or Woke. William Melvin Kelley, the Black novelist, defined “Woke” as the inability of outsiders to keep abreast of Jazz jargon and idioms, such as “Can you dig it?” The concept has been twisted by people like right-wing Christopher Rufo to mean that anything Black, D.E.I., or Critical Race Theory is Willie Horton with a cap and gown, and the reason that the Republican party will become extinct is because running against Blacks and Browns will eventually become an exhausted political strategy.
JW: Have race relations changed in the age of technology?
IR: I’ve learned a lot from Facebook, where Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian American scholars, writers, and historians present views that are absent from the mainstream media. Now there are more virtual outlets, like Substack. At the same time, racists have been provided with more space to malign minorities. AI can be used to reduce the cost of filmmaking, allowing minorities to define themselves without relying on intermediaries. Also, cyberspace has provided me with the opportunity to publish a zine, Konch, that’s competitive with the mainstream media. It can be found at ishmaelreedpub.com.
I think that white supremacy is probably permanent among those who follow a white nationalist leader like Donald Trump. If these followers cared about future generations, they wouldn’t have elected a climate denier. Instead, their current Health Secretary threatens the health of their children, and the lax gun laws have led to guns becoming the leading cause of their children’s deaths. I termed the Trump followers a cult probably before anybody else. Members of cults will make any sacrifice to please the charismatic leader. So as not to offend their MAGA customers, the corporate media line has been that MAGAs voted for Trump out of economic concerns. This has been refuted by a study I cite in my CounterPunch article entitled “Calling Kamala Harris a Whore Won the Election for Trump.”
JW: Do you consider creating your music and art different than your writing? Is writing a different experience?
IR: Audiences are more receptive to music than to reading, which can be hard work. I’ve written over 10 plays, which have provided Black actors with roles that differ from those available to them from film and television. My plays are ignored by the mainstream media because they make 72 percent of theater goers who can afford to buy tickets uncomfortable. At the end of 2025, four plays of mine will have been mounted in New York, Chattanooga, Berkeley, and San Francisco. About 100 people, performers, crew, etc. were employed. My novels are published by a Canadian publisher. This was after hatchet jobs sponsored by feminists at The New York Times, who felt that I was encroaching upon territory they had preserved for Toni Morrison, who was my friend. New York publishers stopped publishing my novels. Fortunately, the Late John O’Brien stepped in and published two. He said he’d publish my works, regardless of sales. I still can get my poetry published in places like The New Yorker magazine and The Academy of American Poetry.
JW: What was your greatest moment like?
IR: Having a great partner, Carla Blank, and two daughters, both of whom had to overcome obstacles. My oldest daughter, Timothy Reed, died at 60. She published one novel, Showing Out, which was produced off-Broadway as a play, and left two unpublished novels, which we are editing. Tennessee, my other daughter, has a thriving literary career. She published her first book at the age of 11. She’s president of PEN Oakland and managing editor of Tar Baby, published by the Toni Morrison Foundation. Her most recent book of poetry was called Califia Burning (Dalkey Archive, 2020). Carla Blank has not only directed my plays in the United States and China, but has a distinguished career as an essayist, having been nominated twice for awards from The Los Angeles Press Club. Her latest book is A Jew In Ramallah, about her directing a play in Ramallah that included Syrian and Palestinian actors.
I am also pleased with my international receptions. I’ve received good receptions from audiences after studying Japanese, Hindi, and Yoruba. I learn enough of these languages to apply them to my work, but then I forget them. At an appearance at the Blue Note in Tokyo, I couldn’t reach the fourth line of a song I wrote in Japanese without applause from the audience. When I read a poem I’d written in Yoruba, an audience of Nigerian writers showed their enthusiasm. My novel, Japanese By Spring, was adopted as a National Project in China, which meant the government paid for its research. My partner, Carla Blank, directed one of my plays in Hunan, China. If I had not studied Hindi, I wouldn’t have been able to cast South Asian actors in my play, “The Conductor.”
My global strategy has paid off. I was presented with the Alberto Dubito award in Venice and an award in Japan. White critic Paul Devlin shows how much Black writers are restricted in the United States. He did a hatchet job on my novel, Juice!, which has the O.J. Simpson trial as a background. Devlin said I’d gone “too far,” which is what patrollers used to say about fugitive slaves. A professor at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, Devlin posted that he was not working for the government. I asked whether the subject had come up. He sent me a cease-and-desist letter. I showed it to one of my lawyers. He asked, “Cease and desist, what?”. He now has one of the plush jobs in Black letters. He’s the book editor at the African American Review, which had to print the disclaimer (“Paul Devlin’s communications and decisions are not on behalf of the United States Government.”) Before he died, the great critic Jerry Ward complained about Devlin’s policy of no unsolicited book reviews.
JW: Are there any new African American writers that you like?
IR: Though often overlooked, this is the Golden Age of Black writing. No longer is the breadth of Black writing confined to the South and the East; now, a flourishing Black writing scene has emerged on the Pacific rim, from Hawaii to Los Angeles and Seattle. If you check out the lists of winners of American Book Awards on the website of the Before Columbus Foundation, you can find many Black writers among the fine writers who have received awards since 1978.
–John Wisniewski
Interviews