Leon Forrest, a lifelong Chicagoan,...

Leon Forrest, a lifelong Chicagoan, studied at the University of Chicago from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1963 to 1964

He is a novelist and a playwright who has also worked as a journalist and an editor and has taught at Yale University, Wesleyan, and elsewhere. Forrest is now chair of the African-American Studies Department at Northwestern University.

His novels include There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden (Random House, 1973) The Bloodworth Orphans (Random, 1977) sum of two units Wings to Veil My Face (Random, 1983) and Divine Days (Another Chicago Pres 1992)

I interviewed