Live & in person
Every date we've recorded since January, and every date still to come. Each upcoming event counts down to its start time and moves itself into the archive below the moment it begins.
Upcoming
38 dates announced
WorkshopUpcomingPachinko · Grand Central, 2017
with Min Jin Lee, Novelist
National Book Award finalist, 2017
Lee brings the 1996 draft of the novel that became Pachinko and reads the opening she threw away.
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In conversationUpcomingThe Blind Assassin · McClelland & Stewart, 2000
with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet
Booker Prize, 2000
Atwood on six decades of bad first pages, and why she stopped waiting for a good mood some time in the 1970s.
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In conversationUpcomingThe Remains of the Day · Faber & Faber, 1989
with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
Ishiguro reconstructs the month in 1987 when he answered no letters and no telephone calls, hour by hour.
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Reading & Q&AUpcomingOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous · Penguin Press, 2019
with Ocean Vuong, Poet & novelist
MacArthur Fellowship, 2019
Vuong on writing badly on purpose, keeping the notebook ugly, and the line that took eleven months.
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In conversationUpcomingFlights · Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2007
with Olga Tokarczuk, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2018
Tokarczuk and her translator argue in public about three fragments, with the audience voting on each one.
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In conversationUpcomingDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead · Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2009
with Olga Tokarczuk, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2018
On books built out of fragments, and how a reader learns to hold a shape that is never stated.
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WorkshopUpcomingThe Underground Railroad · Doubleday, 2016
with Colson Whitehead, Novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2017
A two hour session on rationing research, timing your own readiness, and structure as a map of genres.
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Reading & Q&AUpcomingGirl, Woman, Other · Hamish Hamilton, 2019
with Bernardine Evaristo, Novelist & professor
Booker Prize, 2019
Evaristo performs three of the twelve narrators of Girl, Woman, Other and explains where the punctuation went.
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WorkshopUpcomingNight Sky with Exit Wounds · Copper Canyon Press, 2016
with Ocean Vuong, Poet & novelist
MacArthur Fellowship, 2019
Vuong on writing prose at the pace of poetry, and refusing to apologise for it.
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Live recordingUpcomingThe Nickel Boys · Doubleday, 2019
with Colson Whitehead, Novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2017
Whitehead on the decision he sat on for sixteen years: what happens if the railroad is a railroad.
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Festival stageUpcomingPurple Hibiscus · Algonquin, 2003
with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Novelist & essayist
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2007
Our first West African recording: an open air conversation about complication as a moral argument.
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Live recordingUpcomingFree Food for Millionaires · Warner Books, 2007
with Min Jin Lee, Novelist
National Book Award finalist, 2017
Min Jin Lee on the draft she abandoned in her forties, and the Tokyo interviews that told her whose story it was.
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Reading & Q&AUpcomingMr Loverman · Hamish Hamilton, 2013
with Bernardine Evaristo, Novelist & professor
Booker Prize, 2019
Evaristo on self production, verse novels, and forty years of building a career without permission.
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In conversationUpcomingThe Books of Jacob · Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2014
with Olga Tokarczuk, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2018
What clinical training leaves in a novelist: standing inside someone's reasoning long enough to describe it without mockery.
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In conversationUpcomingHarlem Shuffle · Doubleday, 2021
with Colson Whitehead, Novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2017
How to research atrocity and stay functional: mornings only, notes not immersion, bad television afterwards.
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In conversationUpcomingHalf of a Yellow Sun · Fourth Estate, 2006
with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Novelist & essayist
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2007
On the readers who still write about a debut published two decades ago, and what she would change now.
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Reading & Q&AUpcomingThe Handmaid's Tale · McClelland & Stewart, 1985
with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet
Booker Prize, 2000
Atwood reads from The Blind Assassin and takes questions on what a prize does and doesn't change.
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Live recordingUpcomingManifesto · Hamish Hamilton, 2021
with Bernardine Evaristo, Novelist & professor
Booker Prize, 2019
Forty years of building a career instead of waiting to be discovered, and what the Booker did at sixty.
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In conversationUpcomingNever Let Me Go · Faber & Faber, 2005
with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
Ishiguro on narrators who cannot say what they feel, and the technical problem of a reader who must.
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Reading & Q&AUpcomingTime Is a Mother · Penguin Press, 2022
with Ocean Vuong, Poet & novelist
MacArthur Fellowship, 2019
Vuong reads the nail salon chapter and talks about writing towards a reader you can never reach.
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WorkshopUpcomingKlara and the Sun · Faber & Faber, 2021
with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
Ishiguro on what writing lyrics taught him about first person restraint, with exercises for prose writers.
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In conversationUpcomingAmerican Hagwon · Grand Central, Forthcoming
with Min Jin Lee, Novelist
National Book Award finalist, 2017
On over reporting, historical invisibility, and making a reader in Ohio grieve for a market stallholder in Osaka.
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Festival stageUpcomingThe Testaments · Chatto & Windus, 2019
with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet
Booker Prize, 2000
Atwood on her clipping files, on being called a prophet, and on the archive behind the invention.
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In conversationUpcomingThe Remains of the Day · Faber & Faber, 1989
with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
Ishiguro on narrators who misunderstand the world on purpose, and how much a reader should be told.
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WorkshopUpcomingOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous · Penguin Press, 2019
with Ocean Vuong, Poet & novelist
MacArthur Fellowship, 2019
Bring one sentence. Leave with a shorter one. Ninety minutes on rhythm, restraint and reading aloud.
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Live recordingUpcomingThe Underground Railroad · Doubleday, 2016
with Colson Whitehead, Novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2017
Switching register between horror, satire and crime, and why he refuses to write the same book twice.
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Live recordingUpcomingAmericanah · Knopf, 2013
with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Novelist & essayist
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2007
On the double vision of writing a place you left, with readings in English and Igbo.
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Reading & Q&AUpcomingNight Sky with Exit Wounds · Copper Canyon Press, 2016
with Ocean Vuong, Poet & novelist
MacArthur Fellowship, 2019
A full reading with three new poems, followed by an open mic for anyone under twenty.
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In conversationUpcomingFlights · Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2007
with Olga Tokarczuk, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2018
Seven years of research, page numbers that count down, and what a novel owes a historical record.
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Live recordingUpcomingPurple Hibiscus · Algonquin, 2003
with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Novelist & essayist
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2007
A full length live interview on the novel's afterlife, its critics, and the letters that still arrive.
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WorkshopUpcomingGirl, Woman, Other · Hamish Hamilton, 2019
with Bernardine Evaristo, Novelist & professor
Booker Prize, 2019
Writing without full stops: a practical session on line breaks, breath and multiple narrators.
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WorkshopUpcomingMr Loverman · Hamish Hamilton, 2013
with Bernardine Evaristo, Novelist & professor
Booker Prize, 2019
Building a body of work without permission: form experiments, self production and the long game.
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In conversationUpcomingPachinko · Grand Central, 2017
with Min Jin Lee, Novelist
National Book Award finalist, 2017
Lee on interviews as primary sources, and what you owe the people who let you use their lives.
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Awards nightUpcomingFree Food for Millionaires · Warner Books, 2007
with Min Jin Lee, Novelist
National Book Award finalist, 2017
Our listener voted awards, with readings from every prize winning guest of season four.
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Live recordingUpcomingNever Let Me Go · Faber & Faber, 2005
with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
Recorded with live interpretation, on memory, emigration and the sentence that will not be pinned down.
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In conversationUpcomingThe Blind Assassin · McClelland & Stewart, 2000
with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet
Booker Prize, 2000
Sixty listeners, one notebook, and three hours on revision, contracts and staying curious.
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Live recordingUpcomingKlara and the Sun · Faber & Faber, 2021
with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
Three guests, one stage, and the first announcement of who we're recording with in January.
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Festival stageUpcomingDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead · Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2009
with Olga Tokarczuk, Novelist, Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2018
Nine writers, nine genres, five minutes each, literary, crime, speculative, poetry, memoir and more.
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The archive
2 events recorded
Live recordingPast eventAmericanah · Knopf, 2013
with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Novelist & essayist
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2007
Nine hundred seats, gone in a morning. The best exchange came from the floor, a history student who challenged the 1967 dinner table scene, and got a ten minute answer.
In conversationPast eventHalf of a Yellow Sun · Fourth Estate, 2006
with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Novelist & essayist
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2007
A small online session: one chapter read aloud, then half an hour of questions in the chat.
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