SOURCE: Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, edited by Bernth Lindfors and others, The University of Texas at Austin, 1972, pp. 15-22.

In the following interview, conducted by faculty and students at the University of Texas at Austin in 1970, Clark responds to questions regarding the political themes in several of his plays and offers his thoughts on the role and responsibilities of the writer.

[Students and faculty at the University of Texas]: You have written all your plays in English, a non-African language. Did you write Ozidi, a play based on indigenous theatrical traditions, with an African or non-African audience in mind?

[John Pepper Clark]: In a new nation like Nigeria which cuts across several groups of people, or rather which brings together several peoples speaking different languages, you've got to have a lingua franca, and this is the role that English is playing in the absence...