Places & Travel

World Music commentator Milo Miles finds the ideal record to introduce Americans to Pakistani music: Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn and his "Devotional & Love Songs."

Journalist Stan Sesser is a reporter covering Southeast Asia for the New Yorker. He has collected some of those pieces in a new book "The Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia." He discusses the recent elections in Cambodia which featured violence, twenty political parties and massive voter turnout

Pierce won the "Songwriter of the Year" award at the 1993 Austin Music Awards. A tribute album of her songs performed by other singers, "Across the Great Divide," won the Album of the Year Award. She's originally from Lubbock, Texas, and little known outside the state. Her songs are quirky, and spiritual. Pierce also wrote and performed the one-woman show, ""Bad Girls Upset About the Truth," told in story and song about her problems with men and Jesus.

Spark has been said to "uphold the great tradition of the English Catholic novel." She's a prolific writer, having written 19 novels, including "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," and "Momento Mori." Spark has a new memoir about her first 39 years, called "Curriculum Vitae." It includes stories about school teacher Miss Christina Kay (the character of Jean Brodie was based on her), Spark's marriage at 19 to a man 13 years her senior, their life in Africa, and Spark's early literary career. She's now 74 years old.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg comments on "Estuary English", a new accent in London that combines high and working class modes of speaking.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Drums Along the Congo," by travel writer Rory Nugent.

Regular Stephen Schiff is covering the final days of the Cannes Film Festival. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead fills in with a review of "Sliver".

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the final episode of "Cheers," which airs tonight. He says that, after eleven years, the characters have become a part of our cultural vocabulary.

Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead fills in for our regular film reviewer Stephen Schiff. Whitehead reviews "Posse," a new Western by Mario Van Peebles.

World music critic Milo Miles reviews music by the women's a capella group, Zap Mama.

Maureen Corrigan reviews the new novel by Cathleen Schine, about a woman who falls in love with a French manuscript.

Book critic John Leonard reviews the new book by Vikram Seth, "A Suitable Boy." It's Seth's first novel written in prose.

BBC correspondent Misha Glenny has covered the war in the former Yugoslavia and is the author of the book "The Fall of Yugoslavia." Terry will talk with him about why he thinks there should be no intervention in Bosnia.

Two winners of the P.E.N./Freedom to Write Awards: Serbian dissident writer Svetlana Slapsak and Bosnian writer Zoran Mutic. Both fled Sarajevo and Belgrade respectively to avoid repercussions because of their outspokenness and are living in exile in Slovenia. Mutic is of Serb/Muslim background and is a translator who translated Rushdie's "Midnight Children," into Serbian. Slapsak wrote the widely acclaimed essay, "When Words Kill." She is president of the Committee for the Liberty of Expression.

Iraqi dissident writer Kanan Makiya wrote, under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil, the book "Republic of Fear," about Saddam Hussein's regime. It was one of the first alarms about the brutality of Hussein's regime. Makiya has a new book, "Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World," in which he criticizes Arab intellectuals for keeping silent over escalating cruelties in the Arab world.

Ghosh was born in Calcutta and studied in India, Britian, and Egypt. He has a new novel, "In An Antique Land," which tells the story of two Indians in Egypt: a 12th century slave who Ghosh had read about, and Ghosh himself. He'll talk with Terry about the current violence in India between Muslims and Hindus.

Fresh Air Producer Amy Salilt talks with Peter Garrett, lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil, a band known for its environmental and political activisim. They have a new album called Earth and Sun and Moon.

Journalist Raymond Bonner criticizes the World Wildlife Fund for what he believes is an unnuanced approach to the protection of endangered species in Africa. He believes that the needs of the people living in impoverished areas need to be taken into consideratio. Later, Terry talks to Ginette Hemley of the WWF for her organization's perspective.

Sogyal Rinpoche was born in Tibet and raised in the buddhist tradition. He also studied at Cambridge University in England. He has lived outside of Tibet, in exile, for 20 years. Rinpoche is the incarnation of Terton Sogyal (1856-1926), a Tibetan mystic and the teacher of the last Dalai Lama. Rinpoche's new book, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying," combines Tibetan wisdom with modern research on death and dying.