toni morrison. we could go on and on and on. great issue i think about these great writers which think is true of all great writers around the world the great writers i believe are like priest who have the gift of second sight. that is, they understand powerful things about what it means to be a human being. and that one of our major responsibilities is to teach our children when they are very done to love books. to love books into love to read. and once they love the books and learn to read, they will read a widely. and they should be able to read widely acrs all kinds of traditions, but certainly within the tradition of african writers who do talk in powerful ways about the conundrum of the human experience. and just as a very brief example of whai'm talking about. as much as i and howard have read about the holocaust or enslavement of african people in the united states, it was really not until i read toni morrison novel beloved that i had a sense of what it meant to step inside the shoes of a woman livin and a man, living at

. >> two of my mother's favorite writers are marquez and toni morrison produce said he did not speak english to well but did they ever meet? >> they have certainly mad because and what does he think of his literature? >> i know that he likes the books and i know they have mitt because in a 1997 gabriel garcia marquez 70th birthday and at that time he was not getting on well with the president of columbia so he did not have his 70th birthday where everybody expected him to have it in colombia he had in washington. and in washington one of the guest of honor the best known writers of all those toni morrison they met on several occasions and they seem to think they have a lot of common -- allotting common not only in terms of background and culture but the ways they went about things and in particular the way both of them were concerned with relationships and love that was languished and difficult and so on especially relationships between men and women. yes. they know each other quite well they do not need to that often and she was the guest of honor at his 70th birthday party. >> i am

you can't multitask and read toni morrison or richard wright and so it becomes culture. my wife, dr. carol lee, standing over the wall there. is one of the brightest and one of the most important educators in this country. my wife is the president of aera, american research associatio the largest body of researchers in the world, 25,000 members. [applause] >> my wife, dr. carol lee, did her ph.d. at the university of chicago, three years, three years? when she walked off the stage northwestern grabbedher. she's a full professor at northwestern university. she was also inducted in a national education academy about two years ago. there's only 225 members and she's one of this em. and go to your workshop and she will ask your questions more accurately than i can. >> all right. i'd like to thank y for coming. >> i had a question. >> hi, how are you? my name is a my, per conditions. how are you and i just had a question. u can answer pretty quickly, i guess. but what you authors found out about yourselves by writing the biographies of, you know, mr. kojo is the biography you

there is coming closer to our time, there's tony morrison, there's sonya sanchez. tony k.any wonderful writers. i've just been reading a wonderful play by pearl cleg, a song for coretta king. so very moving. there are too many to name. >> host: by the way, if you're just tuning in, this will be rebroadcast midnight eastern time 9:00 p.m. on the west coast. so you can watch the entire interview with alice walker at that point. plus if you want to see it on the web, about 15, 20 minutes after we end today at 3:00 p.m. eastern time, it will be available at book tv.org on our web site. phone numbers are on the screen if you want to participate in our conversation with alice walker. 202-7 37-00 01. for eastern central time zone, 202-7 37-00 02 for mountain and pacific time. we're off the ranch and unable to get those e-mails in california. next call for alice walker, we'll try masilian, ohio. please go ahead. >> yes, are you there now? >> host: please go ahead. >> caller: yes, go ahead, sir. >> host: caller, please turn down your tv, go ahead. >> caller: the tv is down, i've be

was writing who was the president, but i do identify the best in this country with twain or with toni morrisonso for me, if 1,000 years ago could give shape to a woman who would openly express her love for the man she finds attractive not just platonically but sensually. and where it goes into the for hundreds of pages you're talking about one woman who declares her independence who says i am faithful not to a conformist arranged marriage but to love, you know -- if we have these women in our history and then when we come to the opening of 20th century, we have women who fought their rights for public education, these women tell us our potentials, what we had been and what we can be. so my protest is not unlike during the shah's time when my protest was very political. now my -- people interpret it as political. it is really not of one particular group. it goes far deeper than that. >> host: i would like to take it even a couple thousand years earlier. and a daughter who gets to choose her own husband because they told her you were the one you're going to live with her, the husband. why are yo