I'm in New York City, and It's Just, Like, Art

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This is a novel about selen's internal life. And like any work that fictionalizes its author's real experience, it's also about elif looking back at herself. I actually think of this as a book about trama, but it's also, i tried very hard to make it funny because selin doesn't know that she' she'm going through trama,. Like, you watch them interact with the world with this kind of earnestness. You're not perceiving the things that are happening in the present as being historical. By the time you go another 20 years, you see how many of those ideas have been outdated and now seem, am, really benighted or

This week, we talk to the author Elif Batuman about her new novel ‘Either / Or’. The book is set in the 1990s, and follows Elif’s fictionalised alter ego, Selin, as she navigates life as a Harvard student. Elif reflects on looking back at the ’90s from a contemporary perspective and talks about what we’ve learnt since. Then, we hear about feedback from deputy FT Magazine editor Esther Bintliff. We live in a culture obsessed with feedback. But what kind of feedback is actually effective?

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Want to stay in touch? We love hearing from you. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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Links and mentions from the episode:

– Either/Or by Elif Batuman is available in all good bookstores.

– Esther’s piece on feedback, https://www.ft.com/content/a681ac3c-73b8-459b-843c-0d796f15020e

– Bradley Whitford describing the three-step reaction on WTF with Marc Maron http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-909-bradley-whitford

– If you want to hear Kim Scott talking about Radical Candour at Inbound Bold Talks, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9GLeNCgm4

– Elif Batuman is on Twitter @BananaKarenina. Esther is on Twitter @estherbintliff.

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.

Silicon Valley clip in this episode is courtesy of HBO.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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