Margaret Busby, ‘Yellow Black Radio Broke-Down: Margaret Busby, of Alison and Busby is the new publisher of Ishmeal Reed’s new novel Yellow Black Radio Break-Down. INK asked what made her publish it.’ University of Sussex Special Collections, Ink, June 5th, No. 6, 1971.

‘Ishmael sees Yellow Black Radio as the ‘first American Hoo-Doo novel’, heretical, irreverent, inhibited, and in it (as in his first book The Free-Lance Pallbearers) his language alone works a spell against the myth that all ‘black writing’ is in the same bag, predictable and interchangeable. The same myth that could encourage publishers to believe that just one James Baldwin, one LeRoi Jones, one Eldridge Cleaver per list to the list, that somehow more than one would tip the ship, Titanic or no. And which maybe explains the tendency for only one black writing at a time to be lionized, so that if a new one comes along — the king is dead, long live the king. When we decided to publish, it was reassuring to be backed up by the American reviews (Reed’s mind must be one of the great creations this era’ — ‘may be the meanest writer in the US’ — ‘voodoo rhythms make others seem like vultures circling a dead language’), but rave notices in the American press are no guarantee of bestsellerdom in London, particularly when a book doesn’t fit neatly into any of the categories the British book trade is used to.’