But I've read Mr. Asante's stuff, all this stuff about the Greeks learning philosophy from Africa. I think that that philosophy is worthless. There's been a movement in the twentieth century to assert that a lot of Greek notions are vague and have no empirical basis, so even if the Greeks did study in Africa, so what? These are not the most pressing things that face us.

But Gates sometimes annoys me. For example, it's easy to jump on Afrocentrics, but it's Eurocentrism that's screwing up the world. Afrocentrism doesn't have the power. It would take billions of dollars and many years to do the kind of job on the American psyche that the Eurocentric educational system has done. When Cornel West says, for example, that Afrocentrics are misguided, I am reminded that the basic book of Western Civilization, the bible--which I'm reading line by line and reading all the commentary on--justifies slavery, misogyny, missandry, homophobia, persecution of followers of other gods, and that the central figure of Western Civilization, Jesus Christ, makes very intolerant speeches about Greeks and Samaratins; he was a vulgar nationalist. And I think something is to be said for both sides. When [West] lectures [Afrocentics] for their fascism, he tolerates fascism in the feminist movement. I think that's a disagreement that we have.

Q: You were at Harvard in '87. Did any of your experiences here play into the novel?

A: I'm an outsider, I'm not an academic. I'm on the campus as a craftsman, to do writing courses. But I draw from a lot of places. I thought it was ironic that Werner Sollors, a German, would invite me here because otherwise I never would have been invited. I enjoyed the classes, as a matter of fact I still see some of the students.

Q: Would you like to talk about the craft itself, how you conceive of your work?

A: Like an architect. You build stuff and keep building Sentence by sentence, word by word and finally you get the outcome. Sometimes you don't know the form you're supposed to use. I've written plays that ended up being novels, poems that ended up being novels. I think its important to not only look at writing for technique, but to look at all the other arts. The more I work in film, the more I'm getting film images in my novel, looking at things the way a filmmaker would. So I learn from different artists, musicians. My songs have been recorded by some of the best recorders in this country. I do a lot of things that all contribute to my basic thing, which is the novel. That's where all this other stuff flows from, novels and poetry.

Q: Is your literary voice changing?

A: I think I've become a real pro. I still do some fucked-up things and later say, "Why did I do that?" But I think in the next 20 years I'll be a good writer. It's a life time thing. It's like studying Yoruba culture.