S3 Ep. 25: No Innocents Abroad: Scott Anderson and Andrew Altschul on the CIA and U.S. Provocateurs in Foreign Politics

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by veteran war correspondent and bestselling author Scott Anderson and prize-winning novelist Andrew Altschul. Anderson shares what led him to the four spies featured in his new book The Quiet Americans. Then Altschul talks about decentering the narrative of the American abroad in his new novel The Gringa, which takes inspiration from the real-life case of Lori Berenson. 

To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.

This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. 

Selected readings:

Scott Anderson

• Triage 
• Moonlight Hotel 
• The Man Who Tried to Save the World 
• War Zones
• Lawrence in Arabia 
• Fractured Lands
• The Quiet Americans
• “None Dare Call It a Conspiracy”

Andrew Altschul

• The Gringa
• Deus Ex Machina
• Lady Lazarus 



Others: 

• The Godfather Film Series
• Graham Greene
• Tenet
• The James Bond Films
• Austin Powers Movies 
• John le Carré
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Mark Twain
• The Darling by Russell Banks 
• “The Storytellers of Empire” by Kamila Shamsie
• Libra by Don DeLillo
• "Why I Didn't Sign the Open Letter Against Trump" by Aleksandar Hemon 
• American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• The Good Lieutenant by Whitney Terrell
•  American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

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