Conger Beasley: Past American Voice

Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry

Interviewed by: Rebekah Presson, Angela Elam

Catalog Number(s): 20170818

Interview Year(s): 1990, 1996

We honor the Past American Voice of Conger Beasley Jr.(1940-2016). This author of fiction, poetry, essays and non-fiction covered various subjects, ranging from texts for the Sierra Club Guide to the history of the Lakota Sioux to the fictionalized life of Maurice Ravel. This show pulls from two archive interviews in 1990 and 1996, as well as some never-before aired segments, as he reads from his book, Sundancers and River Demons: Essays on Landscape and Ritual and two of his experimental short stories from The Blood of Dead Poets. He also talks about We Are a People in This World: The Lakota Sioux and the Massacre at Wounded Knee,winner of the 1995 Western Writers of America Spur Award, revealing why he’s often drawn to far-off desolate landscapes and their inhabitants.