David talks to Ian McEwan about Italo Calvino’s The Watcher (1963), one of the greatest of all works of political fiction. Challenging, disturbing, redemptive: this is a book about who gets to count and who doesn’t, and what identity politics really means. David and Ian also discuss how political fiction works - and why the climate change novel is so hard to write. Plus they argue about whether children should be allowed to vote.
Next week: Helen Thompson on Dallas and the end of oil.
Ian McEwan’s latest novel is Lessons, available now.
To read more about Calvino, here is a recent appreciation of his later writings in the New Yorker.
On the children’s focus groups, here is the report.
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