The Roller Coaster of Literary Reputation

The Book Club has taken a short summer break and will return in September. Until then, and ahead of the 85th anniversary of the start of World War Two, here’s an episode from the archives with the author Ian Sansom. 

Recorded ahead of the 80th anniversary in 2019, Sam Leith talks to Ian about September 1, 1939, the W.H. Auden poem that marked the beginning of the war. Ian’s book is a 'biography' of the poem; they discuss how it showcases all that is best and worst in Auden’s work, how Auden first rewrote and then disowned it, and how Auden’s posthumous reputation has had some unlikely boosters in Richard Curtis and Osama Bin Laden.