'As a symbol and agent of the process of communication, of communion, Johnson is a writer of our age whose messages will deliver him, whole and engaging, to readers whose interests are as varied and whose questions are as urgent as his own: to readers of this millennium - and the next' - Rudolph P. Byrd. Charles Johnson is one of the most talented black artists currently working in America. All of his novels - "Faith and the Good Thing", "Oxherding Tale", "Middle Passage", and "Dreamer" - have been widely praised and read. "Middle Passage" won the National Book Award for 1990 and established Johnson in the tradition of Ralph Ellison, one of his idols.In 1998 he was the recipient of one of the prestigious MacArthur 'Genius' awards. Though best known for his fiction, Johnson is also an accomplished essayist, reviewer, script writer, and cartoonist. As he himself says, 'I call myself an artist'. This volume gathers together a rich sampling of his work, stories and outtakes from the novels that have not been published before or have been hard to find, essays, including a lengthy autobiography, cartoons, speeches, and interviews. A final section contains scholarly commentary by leading academic writers. "I Call Myself an Artist" provides a fascinating overview of the life work of one of America's most important artists.