Podcast

Extraordinary Holocaust Fiction, Rediscovered

December 22, 2008
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By Bill Marx On this week’s podcast I talk to Peter Filkins, an award-winning translator who walked into a Harvard Square bookstore, picked up an obscure novel written in German and, after reading a few pages, recognized that he had stumbled onto literary gold. Written in 1950, published in 1962, the book was one of…

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David Hinton on Translating Classical Chinese Poetry

November 24, 2008
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By Bill Marx Translator and poet David Hinton in the midst of nature. On this week’s World Books podcast I talk to David Hinton, an award-winning translator of classical Chinese poetry and philosophy. His latest book, which Hinton translated and edited, is “Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology” from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. The wonderfully rich…

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Ellen Elias-Bursac on Writing from the Former Yugoslavia

November 12, 2008
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By Bill Marx Translator Ellen Elias-Bursac On this week’s World Books podcast I talk to Ellen Elias-Bursac, who translates the work of two of my favorite writers from the former Yugoslavia: David Albahari and Dubravka Ugresic. Elias-Bursac is currently living in the Netherlands, but she recently visited Boston, so I got a chance to talk…

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Dubravka Ugresic Writes a Book That Dares to Bicker

October 29, 2008
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By Bill Marx Novelist and critic Dubravka Ugresic On this week’s World Books podcast I talk to novelist and cultural critic Dubravka Ugresic about her latest volume of trenchant essays and commentaries, “Nobody’s Home” (Translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursac). My conversation with Ugresic circles around her contention that, despite European enthusiasm for culture,…

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Jose Agualusa on Thinking Like a Gecko

October 14, 2008
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By Bill Marx In World Books podcast #13 I talk to Angolan writer José Agualusa, who has garnered considerable praise in the Portuguese-speaking world, including comparisons to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. José Eduardo Agualusa at the Brooklyn Book Fair with Dedi Felman, his American editor, behind him. He has had three novels translated into English, each…

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Porochista Khakpour and Flammable Fiction

October 3, 2008
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Porochista Khakpour at the Brooklyn Book Fair. The late David Foster Wallace was her hero. By Bill Marx The latest World Books podcast features my conversation at the Brooklyn Book Fair with Iranian-American author Porochista Khakpour, whose first novel, “Sons and Other Flammable Objects,” earned accolades from “The New Yorker” as well as the “New…

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Breyten Breytenbach Remembers the Last Abyss Before Hell

September 22, 2008
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Breyten Breytenbach at this year’s Brooklyn Book Fair By Bill Marx On this week’s World Books podcast I talk to South African writer, painter, and human rights activist Breyten Breytenbach about his recently published book of mordantly fantastic fables “All One Horse.” In America, Breytenbach is known, if at all, for his four highly unconventional…

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Critical Condition: The Book Review Blues

January 10, 2008
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ArtsFuse editor Bill Marx speaks with Gail Pool, the author of Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America, about the slow decline of literary criticism in the United States.

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Don Juan — Philosopher of Love

May 22, 2007
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A conversation with Douglas Carlton Abrams, author of the erotically-charged novel “The Lost Diary of Don Juan: An Account of the True Arts of Passion and the Perilous Adventure of Love.” By Bill Marx Readers looking for a retread of Errol Flynn’s antics as the infamous lover will be disappointed — though not grievously so,…

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Suzan-Lori Parks — A Play a Day Keeps the TV Away

April 18, 2007
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Bill Marx speaks with award-winning American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Also, dancing away at the video arcade. Download Part I and Part II of this interview with Suzan-Lori Parks.

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