Race and Reparative Writing; plus, the Cutthroat World of Translation

We have two great interviews this week. First up, Magdalena Edwards joins co-hosts Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to discuss her article for LARB "Benjamin Moser and the Smallest Woman in the World," which has gone viral. This dialogue is no less gripping, as Magdalena outlines her experience working with a publishing industry icon as the hired translator for Clarice Lispector's The Chandelier; and what that harrowing experience led her to reveal about the sordid underbelly of intellectual accreditation. Suffice to say, the powerful readily exploit the vulnerable; but, in this case, the pen and the podcast are gaining the upper hand. Then, Kate and Medaya are joined by Jess Row to discuss his new groundbreaking work White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American imagination. Row brilliantly critiques a broad range of white American authors as he advocates for reparative writing, in which writers use fiction "to approach each other again" in full awareness of America's long racist history. It's nothing short of a clarion call for authors to ply their trade in the fight against Trump and the on-going racist/enthno-nationalist revival that he leads. (p.s. The amount of great literature referenced and discussed in both halves of this podcast would satisfy anyone's late summer reading list.)