Category Archives: Podcast

7.2 You Write Because You Want to Feel Free: Katie Kitamura and Alexander Manshel (SW)

Although Katie Kitamura feels free when she writes—free from the “soup of everyday life,” from the political realities that weigh upon her, and even at times from the limits of her own thinking—she is keenly aware of the unfreedoms her novels explore. Katie, author of the award-winning Intimacies (2021), talks with critic Alexander Manshel aboutContinue reading “7.2 You Write Because You Want to Feel Free: Katie Kitamura and Alexander Manshel (SW)”

7.1 Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds (JP)

Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly makes time for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and ND host John Plotz. She reads from The Wren, The Wren and discusses the “etherized” state of our inner lives as they circulate on social media. Anne says we don’t yet know if the web has become a spaceContinue reading “7.1 Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds (JP)”

6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff (JP)

Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and ND host John Plotz to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpackContinue reading “6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff (JP)”

6.5 Attention is Love: A Discussion with Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath (SW)

Just days before the release of her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds (Riverhead Books, 2023), three-time National Book Award Finalist and The New York Times-bestselling author Lauren Groff sat down to talk to critic Laura McGrath and host Sarah Wasserman. Although Groff admits that she wants “each subsequent book to destroy the one” that cameContinue reading “6.5 Attention is Love: A Discussion with Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath (SW)”

6.4 “We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”: A Discussion with Shehan Karunatilaka and Sangeeta Ray (CH)

Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Norton, 2022), which won the Booker Prize in 2022, is a thriller that begins in the afterlife, an uproarious murder mystery set amid the tragedies of Sri Lanka’s long civil war. Its protagonist, a war photographer, has become a ghost with just seven moons to find hisContinue reading “6.4 “We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”: A Discussion with Shehan Karunatilaka and Sangeeta Ray (CH)”

Season 6: Weirding Out with Kate Marshall

We kick off Season 6 with Kate Marshall, friend of the show and author of the forthcoming book Novels by Aliens: Weird Tales and the Twenty-First Century. Hosts and producers Chris Holmes and Emily Hyde ask Kate about the pulpy literary history of weird tales and learn how in the 21st-century weirdness emerges as both genre andContinue reading “Season 6: Weirding Out with Kate Marshall”

5.2 Writing the Counter-book: Joshua Cohen with Eugene Sheppard (JP)

Eugene Sheppard joins his Brandeis colleague John Plotz to speak with Joshua Cohen about The Netanyahus. Is the 2021 novel a Pulitzer-winning bravura story of the world’s worst job interview? Or is it a searing indictment of ethno-nationalist Zionism–and the strange act of pretense whereby American Jewish writers and thinkers in postwar America pretended thatContinue reading “5.2 Writing the Counter-book: Joshua Cohen with Eugene Sheppard (JP)”

5.1 We Have This-ness, Y’all! Ocean Vuong and Amy E. Elkins (EH)

Season 5 of Novel Dialogue opens with an impassioned refresher course in literary theory brought to you by Ocean Vuong, poet and author of the bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019). Ocean talks with critic Amy E. Elkins and host Emily Hyde about browsing bookstore shelves and building his personal reading list ofContinue reading “5.1 We Have This-ness, Y’all! Ocean Vuong and Amy E. Elkins (EH)”

4.6 Translation is the closest way to read: Ann Goldstein and Saskia Ziolkowski (AV)

In our season finale, Ann Goldstein, renowned translator of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, gives a master class in the art and business of translation. Ann speaks to Duke scholar Saskia Ziolkowski and host Aarthi Vadde about being the face of the Ferrante novels, and the curious void that she came to fill in the publicContinue reading “4.6 Translation is the closest way to read: Ann Goldstein and Saskia Ziolkowski (AV)”

4.5A Bonus Episode: Jean-Baptiste Naudy Reads from Claude McKay’s “Amiable with Big Teeth” (English and French)

A dramatic, bilingual reading from Amiable with Big Teeth by Jean-Baptiste. And don’t miss him in conversation with Brent Hayes Edwards! Listen and read: Transcript: 4.5A Bonus Reading

4.5 The Best Error You Can Make: Brent Hayes Edwards and Jean-Baptiste Naudy on Claude McKay (SW)

What can a French translator do with a novelist who writes brilliantly about the “confrontation between Englishes?” How can such a confrontation be made legible across the boundaries of language, nation, and history? Renowned scholar and translator Brent Hayes Edwards sits down with publisher and translator Jean-Baptiste Naudy to consider these questions in a wide-rangingContinue reading “4.5 The Best Error You Can Make: Brent Hayes Edwards and Jean-Baptiste Naudy on Claude McKay (SW)”

4.2 Light and Sound: Boubacar Boris Diop with Sarah Quesada (AV)

Boubacar Boris Diop is the author of Murambi: The Book of Bones, an unforgettable novel of the Rwandan genocide that blends journalistic research with finely drawn characterizations of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.  In this episode, Mr. Diop reads from Murambi, translated from French by Fiona McLaughlin, and speaks to Duke professor Sarah Quesada and host Aarthi Vadde about how his workContinue reading “4.2 Light and Sound: Boubacar Boris Diop with Sarah Quesada (AV)”

2.7 The Novel of Revolutionary Ideas: Viet Thanh Nguyen and Colleen Lye (AV)

Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Sympathizer and its sequel The Committed, joins esteemed scholar Colleen Lye of UC-Berkeley for a candid discussion about the Asian-American novel and the role of literature and theory in radical social movements. Colleen is drawn to the mix of philosophy and suspense in Viet’s workContinue reading “2.7 The Novel of Revolutionary Ideas: Viet Thanh Nguyen and Colleen Lye (AV)”

2.5 Stitching the Past to the Present: Caryl Phillips speaks with Corina Stan (JP)

Caryl Phillips, professor of English at Yale, world-renowned and prize-winning novelist (from The Final Passage to 2018’s A View of the Empire at Sunset) shares his thoughts on transplantation, on performance, on race, even on sports. Joining him here are John and the wonderful comparatist Corina Stan, educated in Romania, Germany, France and the US, authorContinue reading “2.5 Stitching the Past to the Present: Caryl Phillips speaks with Corina Stan (JP)”

2.4 In Medias Res: Kamila Shamsie and Ankhi Mukherjee (AV)

Acclaimed novelist Kamila Shamsie joins esteemed Oxford scholar Ankhi Mukherjee for a wide-ranging discussion of literature and politics. Ankhi raises the unique challenges facing postcolonial and specifically Muslim writers in the wake of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, including the pressure to become commentators in times of crisis (our episode was recorded in AugustContinue reading “2.4 In Medias Res: Kamila Shamsie and Ankhi Mukherjee (AV)”