If the initial call to scm_with_guile is on a thread and in the main thread at the same time, a segmentation fault occurs. #include #include void* hello_world(void *arg) { scm_c_eval_string("(display \"Hello World!\")"); scm_c_eval_string("(newline)"); } void run_guile() { scm_with_guile(&hello_world, NULL); } int main(int argc, char **argv) { pthread_t th; int ret = pthread_create(&th, NULL, &run_guile, NULL); run_guile(); pthread_join(&th, NULL); return 0; } Here is a backtrace of the issue. #0 0x00007ffff7afd976 in scm_set_current_dynamic_state () from /usr/lib/libguile-2.2.so.1 #1 0x00007ffff7b5faec in guilify_self_2 () from /usr/lib/libguile-2.2.so.1 #2 0x00007ffff7b604b4 in scm_i_init_thread_for_guile () from /usr/lib/libguile-2.2.so.1 #3 0x00007ffff7b604f9 in with_guile () from /usr/lib/libguile-2.2.so.1 #4 0x00007ffff7281312 in GC_call_with_stack_base () from /usr/lib/libgc.so.1 #5 0x00007ffff7b60918 in scm_with_guile () from /usr/lib/libguile-2.2.so.1 #6 0x00000000004007a3 in run_guile () #7 0x00007ffff7893568 in start_thread (arg=0x7ffff5ea8700) at pthread_create.c:465 #8 0x00007ffff75cb52f in clone () at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:95