
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Aleksandar Hemon (25 minutes, 11 mb mp3) Aleksandar Hemon: funny people, sad tales What the Bosnian-American fictionist Aleksandar Hemon loves about being compared to Vladimir Nabokov is not the part about mastering English as a new language — praise Hemon doesn’t feel he’s earned quite yet. What pleases Hemon [...]
Audio|Thu, 21 May 2009
|Sarajevofound at0:24, 3:37
“…new century -- did it. Your -- is about deeply rooted in Sarajevo. . In Chicago by now -- but he believed Iran for example. You've already gangster histories in either place abrasive very stylish. Immigrant …”
“…two countries right -- columns also read by Boston's everywhere. Just in Boston Bruins have asked yes it doesn't -- million. Leaving the states that are repeating I get their bosses. So in that they strange …”
Colm Toibin at the James family graves: “hallowed ground” of novels, diaries, sacrifice. “It’s very rare.” Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with novelist Colm Toibin. (44 minutes, 22 mb mp3) After The Master, his breakthrough meditation on Henry James, there’s no detaching the Irish novelist Colm Toibin from James’ own “dramatizations of secrecy.” Toibin’s [...]
Audio|Tue, 19 May 2009
|Anthony Hopkinsfound at41:02, 0:19
“…cast is so. Hoosier actor to play any games. To onlookers. Possible. Anthony Hopkins comes to mind James's in his -- here to younger and well I don't think popped into this and -- Produced such a dentists and getting my own words used as a tactics touch with the left. John Djokovic played good husband put -- root for us but you know I -- total solution justices may be impossible but. Sean Connery fair and in games. -- over this period. But he's tough and Henry is -- Mean to me the notion of Henry …”
“…hypnotic voice in a big American hit just out titled. Brooklyn. The new book is a heartbreaker. About an Irish girl from a small town who comes to America about fifteen years ago and -- to …”
In this world of overrated pleasures and underrated treasures, as the songwriter said, I’m glad there is George Scialabba. Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with George Scialabba (44 minutes, 20 mb mp3) George Scialabba: ideas as life, not a living In the din, that is, of over-caffeinated wonks and touts who pass for thinkers, I [...]
Audio|Thu, 14 May 2009
|review booksfound at28:50, 0:44
“…the New Yorker getting thinner and thinner and thinner. Why isn't your review books getting fatter and fatter and fatter while more and more people reading the London review books online and in what is going on out there. In the shall we say the higher public conversation. …”
“…panel. Very private freelance public plus -- on the model of Emerson. William James and the first paradox in our conversation. -- in his contention that people like him who live and die for the big …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Reif Larsen (45 minutes, 20 mb mp3) Reif Larsen: stories, pictures and margins! Maybe there are two Reif Larsens. One is, at 29, the precocious savior of the collapsing book business — the game-changer, anyway, who in a desperately down market got $900,000 for his first novel, with foreign [...]
Audio|Tue, 12 May 2009
|South Americafound at39:42, 18:37
“…some of the more classics and heart of darkness comrades from Erickson Garcia Marquez is hundred years the way that breaks all the rules and yet. It's such perfect now. And I -- and Russian gogel -- tales. And the Wisconsin. So I think guys I wanna position myself somewhere between the magic realism -- of South America and the strange. If overexposed surrealism of all in eastern European literature like -- are some of the writers that have come. …”
“…go into the courtyard there at the school the public's pretty rural public schools or private schools there. -- And which is so cool to see this kind of I mean these kids again first there …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Paul Harding (58 minutes, 26 mb mp3) What is the rock drummer thinking? Well, if he’s the dazzling first-novelist Paul Harding of Tinkers, the guy at the drums in the band known as “Cold Water Flat” was channeling Elvin Jones, reinventing time with his own hands and feet [...]
Audio|Thu, 7 May 2009
|new bookfound at0:49, 21:48
“…about their sons and their fathers and -- Harding I think every new book tankers three times since the weekend and I haven't. I'm not gonna get over it. This is what energies spoke of fiction …”
“…to go the last of the GPA. I'm still again with those reading books was a musician prolonged time played drums for many years. And with a professional musician for a number of years after graduate …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with James Der Derian and Catherine Lutz (46 minutes, 21 mb mp3) We’re taking two fresh measures here of the United States as military colossus — in two new books from the Watson Institute this spring. Two common points here: you won’t forget these perspectives once you’ve taken in [...]
Audio|Thu, 30 Apr 2009
|Saudi Arabiafound at7:39, 7:54
“…momentarily famous exits. Of its its forces from overseas. Bases including France Saudi Arabia. . Quite recently the Philippines. The tickets or -- Where else I think significantly. Under. Political pressure when you said. …”
“…Well in Eastern Europe that the Czech Republic. . Poland's. There are movements and in many of the countries. In that. In the Pacific. -- a small but very energetic and …”
Twenty five years ago on a human-rights mission to Uruguay, David Kennedy fashioned the legal argument that freed five tortured prisoners (mostly medical students) from prison under a military dictatorship. The odd part is that Kennedy (now Brown University’s vice president for international affairs) came away from his own adventure with doubts of all [...]
Audio|Wed, 29 Apr 2009
|South Africafound at17:00, 8:10
“…years and about that time my wife and I were living in South Africa which at that point was close to being -- police state. And I ever call from the Thursday's. There there are many Americans certain students who were drawn of that situation. Try to do good works in South Africa and sometimes local south Africans were very apprehensive. That -- and well meaning. But inexperienced young people coming into a police state situation. Could implicate. Innocently about really. Good people in South Africa or who were trying to do similar work. And there was a lot of worry that Americans kind came in with their …”
“…a better way to do it and do this and we do Human Rights Watch. . You know open society phone. People like that do it any better today -- do is is their way through those those …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversations with Amitav Ghosh and Robert Coover (17 minutes, 8 mb mp3) Amitav Ghosh & Robert Coover Our conversation draws on the novelist Robert Coover’s exercise of conscience about freedom of expression in the world. Today. Burma was the focus this week of what’s become an annual International Writers’ Project [...]
Audio|Fri, 24 Apr 2009
|North Koreafound at2:28, 7:00
“…it has been today is it this week compared for example to North Korea. . Or to Zimbabwe etc. it's it's it's not as dysfunctional as some. Countries like world. Or or Zimbabwe has got it has …”
“…suffering in Burma. One can hear these things this week in the United States without. Without. The backdrop of what we're learning about torture. That. Was difficult harsh questioning tactics nobody wants to use the big …”
“What a pleasure,” Carlos Fuentes was saying, “to speak praises of the United States again.” Click to listen to Chris’s conversations with Carlos Fuentes (22 minutes, 10 mb mp3) Mexico’s statuesque novelist, the handsomest, best-tailored writer in the world, sounds euphoric in spite of The Crisis — maybe because, as Brazil’s President Lula has said, “we didn’t [...]
Audio|Thu, 23 Apr 2009
|United Statesfound at15:16, 1:19
“…should all have a right to vote for the president of the United States -- affects us all and I think that 80% of the world wouldn't vote for Barack Obama. Simply stated I think he would represents hope. It's the novelty it's a good novelty as he's a good man an interest in intelligent generous man. For me it's Adam -- usually have such a man in the White House very good news. What's the model -- Barack Obama that you've -- nothing is unique. The first of two of them were not true. Usually not a black men are what makes a workbook. To have him without in the White House is itself an exceptional event of a woman would have been -- to -- and to have this man because it is. Cosmopolitan or just one thing I would like to underline this is the first. Cosmopolitan president of the United States and Canada -- nationalist president elect Franklin Roosevelt. Of course there are groups were deeply in New York -- its -- etc. but I have this man Barack Obama. Who was born in Hawaii. From the Kenyan father a mother from Kansas who's educated in Indonesia. Who goes through Harvard and Columbia who refuses to be a corporate lawyer becomes a social worker and Chicago because president of the United States is biography is terribly unusual. Totally and usually -- novelty which explains the knowledge of the society of and -- a cosmopolitan …”
“…new world. Well I spent eight years of my wasted life with George Bush. . At that but you're alone you know -- I'm glad that is over because there's deep to have feelings towards United States and I went to school -- child. And during the era Franklin Roosevelt. So my great idea lose the Roosevelt tonight deals and the new deal. And when NIC it's. That's behind corrupted. Vitally news it was and bush years I feel extremely -- about United States and you say you're anti American know I'm pro Roosevelt. -- You've -- the United States and many moods it was a moment even measure Korea was blossoming. When you were denied visas to come even the literary …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversations with David Polonsky, James Der Derian, Amy Kravitz and Keith Brown about “Waltz with Bashir” (31 minutes, 14 mb mp3) David Polonsky: “Waltz with Bashir” is the Israeli war film that broke through to everything but an Oscar. It’s the “documentary cartoon” that uses the visual language of comic [...]
Audio|Fri, 17 Apr 2009
|Waltz With Bashirfound at0:01, 7:34
“…I'm -- this is open source from the Watson institute at brown university and American conversation. Global attitudes we call it this one is about bleeding battles cars in all of our heads. -- sort of bridge for the Rhode Island School of Design here. Engaging the art director of a breakthrough movie in animation. David Polanski is -- visiting -- and -- this Oscar nominated film Waltz With Bashir. . Tracks 12 soldiers. Hound dog nightmares. To that 25 year old roots in Israel's invasion of Lebanon. In 1982. That was the …”
“…introduce any Kravitz who teaches animation. Every Tuesday and has been making animated films and she was eleven years old. -- how would you teach this this movie. How do you teacher. …”