In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 506, my conversation with Elif Batuman.

Elif Batuman's first novel, The Idiot, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in the UK. She is also the author of a novel called Either/Or, published in 2022, as well as The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010.

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Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

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Elif Batuman on Epistolary Relationships, Childhood, the Foolishness of Youth, Creative Humiliation, Perseverance, and Finding the Beauty in Yourself