London Review Bookshop Podcasts

Prize-winning poet, essayist, dramatist and actor Ramsey Nasr was voted Poet Laureate of the Netherlands in 2009. Nasr was in conversation with prizewinning British poet Ruth Padel, who has published seven poetry collections, a wide range of non-fiction, and a novel, Where the Serpent Lives.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Writing in El Pa’s, Jordi Gracia described Os libros arden mal as 'a novel that could have been history or biography, but is instead a work of literature written by an author at the height of his powers'. Manuel Rivas read from his work and talked with Jonathan Dunne, who has translated several of his books into English.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Anatomy of a Moment is a patient dissection of a key episode in recent European history – the attempted coup in Spain in 1981. In his meticulous analysis of the moment when gunmen stormed the Spanish parliament, Javier Cercas has created an intriguing book which occupies a fascinating space between fiction and reality. Paul Preston, Professor of Spanish History at LSE joined Cercas to discuss the challenges of historical writing in a conversation chaired by Lisa Hilton, acclaimed author of Queen’s Consort.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Catalan novelists Najat el Hachmi, Carles Casajuana and Teresa Solana, chaired by Peter Bush, discussed their work and the experience of being Catalan novelists.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

One of the Netherlands' most distinguished living authors, Cees Nooteboom discussed short stories, death and translation with A.S. Byatt. Chaired by Jan Dalley, Arts Editor of the Financial Times.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ali Smith read from her novel There but for the (Hamish Hamilton) and discussed her work with the audience.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Richard Sennett came to the Bookshop to discuss The Foreigner, a pair of essays in which he explores displacement in the metropolis through two vibrant historical moments: mid-19th-century Paris Renaissance Venice.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An evening of poetry was held at the Bookshop to celebrate the publication of David Harsent's collection, *Night*. Jo Shapcott and Don Paterson joined David Harsent for a spellbinding set of readings, touching upon bee-keeping, Rothko, saints and siestas, and culminating in an atmospheric reading from *Night* itself.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Patti Smith's reading, drawn from her extensive body of work, including Just Kids, and alongside those writers she has long loved and advocated, was programmed in association with Artevents.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On the eve of its confirmation as one of the six Man Booker shortlisted books for 2010, Tom McCarthy's ambitious and exhilarating novel C was the subject for discussion between its author and novelist Lee Rourke. McCarthy reads from C and considers its structure and themes – in particular its roots in the work of key 20th century theorists, literary, philosophical and psychological.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, described by Le Monde as the greatest Russian novel of the 20th century, was regarded as so dangerous to the Soviet state that Mikhail Suslov declared that it could not be published for at least 200 years. Yekaterina Korotkova-Grossman, Vasily's daughter by his first wife, came to know her father only gradually. At first she saw little of him except during New Year holidays. In the mid-1950s she moved from the Ukraine to Moscow, and they became close in the last ten years of his life.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Yang Lian's poems collapse distances by combining a deep attention to the particular with the allusiveness of classical Chinese poetry, in which a word or image can contain all of tradition: 'With the cry of a wild goose, I am drawn into the Tang Dynasty at the instant of hearing, making Lee valley's waters flow twelve hundred years upstream.' Yang Lian was in conversation with his translator, Brian Holton, and Iain Sinclair, poet, documentary-novelist and East Londoner.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This event took place in association with English PEN, which exists to promote literature and its understanding, uphold writers' freedoms around the world, campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and promote the friendly cooperation of writers and free exchange of ideas. PEN's Writers in Translation programme has, during the past five years, championed over 35 titles by writers from all over the globe, and supports the three speakers here.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How can the same thing be said in a different language, when the language carries the assumptions of a whole culture with it? How do you balance spirit and accuracy? What do you do with slang and puns and untranslatable words? However many questions we ask about translation in the abstract, we rarely see how it actually works. This event was about giving time and attention to that process.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An important champion of francophone literature, Mabanckou is both a writer engage, and a very engaging man. Teaching at the time in the French literature department at UCLA, he made a rare visit to London for the festival. Mabanckou talked about his work with Helen Stevenson, translator of Broken Glass and author of several books, including Instructions for Visitors: Life and Love in a French Town.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Edward Said described Elias Khoury as an artist who gives 'voice to rooted exiles and trapped refugees, to dissolving boundaries and changing identities, to radical demands and new languages'. Khoury was in discussion with the writer and journalist Jeremy Harding, a contributing editor at the London Review of Books, who has written extensively on Khoury's life and work.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Julian Bell and Peter Campbell talked about things that painters can and can't do, in particular about the relationship painters have had to old art and the limits and opportunities that arise from society, its technology and its institutions.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In conversation with the novelist Tom McCarthy, Jonathan Lethem read from Chronic City and discussed, inter alia, Manhattan's virtuality, the inspiration behind the character of Perkus Tooth, the price of things, and talking animals.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With his new play about Auden and Britten, The Habit of Art, playing to packed houses at the National Theatre, Alan Bennett visited the Bookshop to read from his introduction to the play and to answer an eclectic range of questions from the audience.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

LRB editor Mary-Kay Wilmers, and contributors Jeremy Harding and John Lanchester, discussed the pleasures and pitfalls of writing family histories, under the chairmanship of LRB publisher Nicholas Spice.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.