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Commentator MAUREEN CORRIGAN reviews, "A Map of the World," by Jane Hamilton.

2: Writer, performer and activist NICOLE PANTER. She is well known in the punk-rock scene, and was a founding member and writer of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse." She is a member of the punk band Honk if Yer Horny. In 1992, PANTER co-founded The Bohemian Women's Political Alliance, a feminist organization of "...the teenagers who dressed in black, the bad girls who climbed out of bedroom windows at dark and caught taxis home at dawn."

South African journalist JOHN MATISONN. MATISONN is white and grew up in the suburbs in Johannesburg. (His grandparents emigrated to South Africa at the turn of the century). To N-P-R listeners he's best known for his coverage from South Africa from 1986 to 1991. MATISONN also worked in Washington, D.C. He's now the head of elections for the South Africa Broadcasting Company, S-A-B-C, (which before the end of apartheid, broadcast purely government propoganda). He also co-founded the P-B-I, Public Broadcasting Initiative, to train and recruit South African journalists for the SABC to teach them about balance and fairness in the media.

Actor and singer HARRY BELAFONTE. He was born in Harlem and raised in the hills of Jamaica where he absorbed the song and music of the island life around him. BELAFONTE's first love was theater, however: he wasn't convinced that popular singing would take him as far emotionally as Shakespeare did. But by embracing the calpyso music of his childhood he introduced it to America. This week, he performs his first public concert in New York City in over thirty years.

Astrophysicist GEORGE SMOOT. Since 1974 he's worked on NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, leading the instrument team that detected cosmic "seeds." In 1992 he announced that he and a team of researchers had detected the biggest, oldest objects ever observed in the universe, the "cosmic seeds" that were the origin of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. He was quoted as saying then, "If you're religious, it's like seeing God." SMOOT has co-authored a new book about the development of the big bang theory, and the effort he's been involved in, looking for what he calls "wrinkles in time, those distant echoes of the early formation of the galaxies." It's called "Wrinkles in Time," (William Morrow) by Smoot and Keay Davidson.

collePoet MARK DOTY. He won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle award for his poetry ction, My Alexandria (University of Illinois Press). He is currently a Fannie Hearst Visiting Professor at Brandeis University. INTERVIEW TWOESSEX HEMPHILL is the author of two books of poetry, "Earth Life" and "Conditions," and a collection of prose and poetry called "Ceremonies." He's also the editor of "Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men." He's reading from his work "Vital Signs," published in the collection "Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS," edited by Thomas Avena (Mercury House).

MILO MILES, world music COMMENTATOR, reviews "Boto," a debut album by Lokua Kanza`on the French label Night and Day.REV. 2: TV critic DAVID BIANCULLI previews the third installment of "Prime Suspect." It will air on PBS tonight. Helen Mirren stars as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. "Prime Suspect" is part of PBS''s anthology series "Mystery."

2: Broadway composer CHARLES STROUSE. His hits include, "Bye Bye Birdie," "Applause," and "Annie." He's also written the film scores for "Bonnie and Clyde," and "The Night They Raided Minskys," and others. Last year, STROUSE mounted a sequel to "Annie," -- "Annie Warbucks." When asked if he'd ever just wanted to quit he said, "Never. . . The one thing that all the music teachers I had instilled in me was a desire to connect notes. . . I love composing for the theater." (REBROADCAST FROM 1

Rock critic KEN TUCKER gives his list of bests (and a worst) for

JAMES FALLOWS. He's the Washington Editor for the "Atlantic Monthly" and the author of a new book, "Looking at the Sun" (Pantheon). FALLOWS examines new political and economic systems that have arisen in East Asia which challenge Western principles of capitalism and democracy. FALLOWS argues the impact of Asia on the West has been hidden by America's false perception about the "success" of individual enterprise and rights in the area. He predicts Korea, Taiwan and "Greater China" are the most likely countries to dominate the region economically.