In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Merve Emre about literary criticism and how to engage with literature. They discuss what literary criticism is and why it is important. They talk about different ways of reading, author’s intent, and the contours of literary genre. They also discuss various forms of interpretation, themes of “becoming” in the philosophy of Nietzsche and writing of Mieko Kawakami, and many more topics.

Merve Emre is a professor of literature at Oxford University, Critic at The New Yorker, and the Shaprio-Silverberg Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan University. She has her BA from Harvard University and her PhD from Yale University. Her essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books. She is the author of numerous books including Paraliterary and The Personality Brokers. You can find her work at her website. Twitter: @mervatim