The Shakespeare and Company Interview

This week Ian Dunt joined Adam Biles to discuss How to Be a Liberal, his immensely readable history of, and rallying cry for, “the single most radical political programme in the history of humankind.”Buy How to Be a Liberal here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781912454457/how-to-be-a-liberal-the-story-of-freedom-and-the-fight-for-its-survivalBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https:/.friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com*The authoritarian right is taking control. From Viktor Orban in Hungary, to Brexit in Britain, to Donald Trump in America, nationalists have launched an all-out assault on liberal values. In this groundbreaking new book, political journalist Ian Dunt tells the story of liberalism, from its birth in the fight against absolute monarchy to the modern-day resistance against the new populism. In a soaring narrative that stretches from the battlefields of the English Civil War to the 2008 financial crash and beyond, this vivid, page-turning book explains the political ideas which underpin the modern world. But it is also something much more than that - it is a rallying cry for those who still believe in freedom and reason.*Ian Dunt is a columnist at the i newspaper, a regular host on the Oh God What Now podcast, a columnist for the New European and the i newspaper, and the author of two books: Brexit: What The Hell Happens Now and How To Be A Liberal. Follow Ian on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/IanDuntAdam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we’re joined by the brilliant Leïla Slimani to discuss The Country of Others, her immensely readable, deeply moving, Steinbeckian family drama set against the grand sweep of Moroccan and French history.Buy The Country of Others here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780571361625/the-country-of-othersBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https:/.friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com*Alsace, 1944. Mathilde finds herself falling deeply in love with Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan soldier, billeted in her town, fighting for the French. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France, following Amine to Morocco. But life here is unrecognizable to this brave and passionate young woman. Where she she once danced, bickered with her sister, her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings.Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm, by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner and by the lack of money Mathilde grows restless. As Morocco's own struggle for independence grows daily, Mathilde and Amine find themselves caught in the crossfire . . .This story of two nations at war, two cultures at loggerheads, and one family torn apart is as tenderly observed as it is devastatingly true*Leïla Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, which she won for Lullaby. A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we welcome the twice Booker-shortlisted author Tom McCarthy here to discuss The Making of Incarnation, a novel that asks some of the most pressing but also most confounding questions of our age. How much will we ever be able to understand the forces that drive the universe, and how much meaning should we ascribe to them? Will the drive for efficiency inevitably strip away our humanity? What are we left with that is particular, peculiar and that belongs to us once our lives are fed into the churning data maelstrom? And if everything can be planned and plotted down to the minutest detail, what happens when, inevitably, there’s a glitch?Buy The Making of Incarnation here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781787333307/the-making-of-incarnation-from-the-twice-booker-shorlisted-author-of-c-and-satin-islandBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com **Tom McCarthy's work has been translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for cinema, theatre and radio. His third novel C was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Walter Scott Prize and the European Literature Prize and his fourth, Satin Island, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Literature Prize by Yale University. McCarthy is also author of the study Tintin and the Secret of Literature, and of the essay collection Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish. He lives in Berlin.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we welcome one of the most innovative and fearless writers at work today, Claire-Louise Bennett, here to discuss CHECKOUT 19 a novel that explores class, freedom, adolescence, transcendence, sexual politics and artistic synthesis.Buy Checkout 19 here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/d/9781787333550/checkout-19Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com **Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire and studied literature and drama at the University of Roehampton, before moving to Ireland where she worked in and studied theatre for several years. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize and her debut book, Pond, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2016. Claire-Louise's fiction and essays have appeared in a number of publications including White Review, Stinging Fly, gorse, Harper's Magazine, Vogue Italia, Music & Literature, and New York Times Magazine.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us as we take a plunge into the wild mind of David Keenan and his latest novel, the hallucinatory masterpiece Monument Maker.“In a dizzying gyroscopic vortex of inner archeology, David Keenan sifts through spiraling past lives to unearth his provocative vision of the future. A colossus of imagination” LENNY KAYEBuy Monument Maker here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781474617093/monument-makerBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com *David Keenan was born in Glasgow and grew up in Airdrie, in the west of Scotland, in the late-70s and early-1980s. He is the author two novels, the cult classic This Is Memorial Device (Faber & Faber), which won the Collyer Bristow/London Magazine Award for Debut Fiction 2018 and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, and For The Good Times (Faber & Faber). He is also the author of England's Hidden Reverse (Strange Attractor Press), a history of the UK's post-punk/Industrial underground, as well as To Run Wild In It (Rough Trade Books), an experimental novella, and the co-designer, alongside Sophy Hollington, of his own tarot pack, the Autonomic Tarot (Rough Trade Books).Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For our first podcast of la rentrée we were delighted to be joined by Elif Shafak, with us to discuss her mesmerising new novel The Island of Missing Trees, a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, memory and amnesia, human-induced destruction of nature, and, finally, renewal.Buy The Island of Missing Trees. here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780241434994/the-island-of-missing-trees-the-top-10-sunday-times-bestsellerBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com **Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist. She has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels. She is a bestselling author in many countries around the world and her work has been translated into 55 languages. Her latest novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize; and was Blackwell’s Book of the Year. The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by BBC among the 100 Novels that Shaped Our World. The Architect’s Apprentice was chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall’s inaugural book club, The Reading Room. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne's College, Oxford where she is an honorary fellow.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the S&Co podcast takes its summer break for a few weeks, we leave you with this fascinating and funny conversation between Pola Oloixarac and John Freeman, recorded on the bookshop terrace on 19th July. Many thanks to John, Pola and the NYU Creative Writing Program for making this very special evening possible.*Buy Pola Oloixarac’s books here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/search?q=Pola+Oloixarac&type=booksBuy John Freeman’s There's a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780593314692/theres-a-revolution-outside-my-love-letters-from-a-crisisBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com*Pola Oloixarac was born in Buenos Aires, where she studied Philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She's the author of the novels Savage Theories, Dark Constellations and Mona. She's the recipient of the 2020 Eccles Centre Prize, and was named one of Granta Best of Young Spanish Novelists in 2010. Her pieces about culture and politics have appeared in The New York Times, BBC and La Nación, where she writes a political column. She lives in Barcelona.John Freeman is the founder of Freeman's and an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. The author and editor of ten books, his work includes the anthologies Tales of Two Planets and The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story; a book-length essay, Dictionary of the Undoing, and two collections of poems; Maps and The Park. His most recent book, co-edited with Tracy K. Smith, is There's a Revolution Outside My Love. He is Artist in Residence at NYU.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second episode from our first in-store event in 18 months, Katie Kitamura discusses her deeply affecting, Barack Obama-approved, fourth novel Intimacies with S&Co Literary Director, Adam Biles.Buy Intimacies here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781787332003/intimacies-a-barack-obama-summer-2021-reading-pickBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com*Katie Kitamura's most recent novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. It was named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications, translated into 16 languages, and is being adapted for film. Her two previous novels, Gone to the Forest and The Longshot were both finalists for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. A recipient of fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and Santa Maddalena, Kitamura has written for publications including the New York Times Book Review, Guardian, BOMB, and Triple Canopy. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at New York University.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For our first in-store event for more than eighteen months we were joined by two of our favourite novelists, Jakuta Alikavazovic and Katie Kitamura.In this first episode from that evening Jakuta Alikavazovic discusses her extraordinary, crepuscular novel Night As It Falls with S&Co Literary Director, Adam Biles.Buy Night As It Falls here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780571342266/night-as-it-fallsBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com*Jakuta Alikavazovic is a French writer of Bosnian and Montenegrin origins. Her debut novel, Corps Volatils, won the Prix Goncourt in 2008 for Best First Novel. She has translated works by Ben Lerner, David Foster Wallace and Anna Burns into French. She lives in Paris and writes a regular column for the daily newspaper Libération.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we were joined by Laurent Binet, discussing Civilisations, his hugely entertaining counterfactual novel in which Atahualpa leads an army of two hundred Incas to Europe . . . Buy Civilisations here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/d/9781787302297/civilisationsBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstoreBecome a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com*Laurent Binet lives and works in France. His first novel, HHhH, was an international bestseller which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt du premier roman, among other prizes. The 7th Function of Language won the Prix de la FNAC and Prix Interallié. Civilisations is a bestseller that has won the Grand Prix de l'Académie française.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeListen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.