The Spook Still Sitting By The Door: Sam Greenlee Interview

Best known for his novels The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1969) and Baghdad Blues (1976), Sam Greenlee is a controversial writer and political activist. His work has always faced opposition because of its confrontational style and troubling imagery, but it has also attracted a large audience of activists, rebels, and radicals. Greenlee makes commercial publishers nervous; in fact The Spook Who Sat by the Door was first published in England when it failed to find an American publisher, but it went on to sell over one million copies and was printed in six languages. A film adaptation of the novel—about a black CIA operative who decides to use his training to organize race riots—was withdrawn without explanation after a promising opening at the box office in 1973. His 1976 novel Baghdad Blues, set in Iraq in 1958, the year of the Ba'athist takeover of the country, is based on his own experiences and has acquired a new audience since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Also on W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:

The Spook Who Sat By The Door 40 Years Later: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2009/11/26/tha-artivist-presentswe-all-be-news-radio-1