Tag Archives: #noveldialogue

5.5 They’re Not Metaphorical Demons: Mariana Enriquez and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (CH)

Booker Prize shortlister Mariana Enriquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, joins Penn State professor Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra and host Chris Holmes to talk about her most recent novel, Our Share of Night, her first to be translated into English. Our Share of Night follows a spiritualContinue reading “5.5 They’re Not Metaphorical Demons: Mariana Enriquez and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (CH)”

5.4 The Meat and Bones of Life: Erika T. Wurth with Leif Sorensen (RE)

With the publication of her most recent novel, White Horse, Erika T. Wurth breaks from the realism that characterized her earlier fiction and ventures into horror. White Horse follows Kari, an urban Native living in Denver, as a family heirloom belonging to her long-missing mother launches her into a world of the uncanny: ghosts andContinue reading “5.4 The Meat and Bones of Life: Erika T. Wurth with Leif Sorensen (RE)”

5.3 It’s on The Illabus: A Discussion with Jean-Christophe Cloutier and John Jennings (SW)

John Jennings—Hugo Award winner, New York Times bestselling author, curator, scholar, and Artist—is keenly aware that in adapting novels for the graphic format, his decisions turn what has only been imagined into facts drawn on the page. In this conversation with critic, translator, and teacher of a creative course on the art of making comics,Continue reading “5.3 It’s on The Illabus: A Discussion with Jean-Christophe Cloutier and John Jennings (SW)”

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)”

4.4 “A short, sharp punch to the face”: José Revueltas’ The Hole (El Apando) with Alia Trabucco Zerán and Sophie Hughes (CH)

Alia Trabucco Zerán, award-winning author of The Remainder (La Resta), and Women Who Kill (Las Homicidas),and Sophie Hughes, Alia’s translator and finalist for the International Booker Prize talk with Novel Dialogue host Chris Holmes about a novel that has shaped their lives as writers and thinkers: The Hole by José Revueltas. Sophie and Alia discuss how The Hole, written while Revueltas was held in the infamousContinue reading “4.4 “A short, sharp punch to the face”: José Revueltas’ The Hole (El Apando) with Alia Trabucco Zerán and Sophie Hughes (CH)”

4.3 Strange Beasts of Translation: Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang in Conversation

Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang are both writers who accumulate languages. Sitting down with host Emily Hyde, they discuss their work in and across Chinese and English, but you’ll also hear them on Sichuanese, the dialect of Mandarin spoken in Yan Ge’s native Sichuan province, and on the Queen’s English as it operates in Singapore, where Jeremy grewContinue reading “4.3 Strange Beasts of Translation: Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang in Conversation”

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)”

4.1 “Sometimes I’m just a little disappointed in English”: Alejandro Zambra, Megan McDowell, and Kate Briggs tackle translation (JP)

.  A novelist, a translator and a theorist of translation walk into a Zoom Room……Alejandro Zambra, Megan McDowell, and Kate Briggs provide the perfect start to Season 4 of Novel Dialogue. Our first themed season is devoted to translation in all its forms: into and out of English and also in, around, and over the borders between criticismContinue reading “4.1 “Sometimes I’m just a little disappointed in English”: Alejandro Zambra, Megan McDowell, and Kate Briggs tackle translation (JP)”

3.6 Why are you in bed? Why are you drinking? Colm Tóibín and Joseph Rezek in conversation (TM)

Colm Tóibín, the new laureate for Irish fiction, talks to Joseph Rezek of Boston University, and guest host Tara K. Menon of Harvard. The conversation begins with Colm’s latest novel The Magician, about the life of Thomas Mann, and whether we can or should think of novelists as magicians and then moves swiftly from one big question to the next.Continue reading “3.6 Why are you in bed? Why are you drinking? Colm Tóibín and Joseph Rezek in conversation (TM)”

3.4 The Work of Inhabiting a Role: Charles Yu speaks to Chris Fan (JP)

Charles Yu won the 2020 National Book Award for Interior Chinatown but some of us became fans a decade earlier, with How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010). He brilliantly uses SF conventions to uncover the kind of self-deceptive infilling that we all do every day, the little stories we tell ourselvesContinue reading “3.4 The Work of Inhabiting a Role: Charles Yu speaks to Chris Fan (JP)”

3.3 In the Editing Room with Ruth Ozeki and Rebecca Evans (EH)

Ruth Ozeki, whose most recent novel is The Book of Form and Emptiness, speaks with critic Rebecca Evans and guest host Emily Hyde. This is a conversation about talking books, the randomness and serendipity of library shelves, and what novelists can learn in the editing room of a movie like Mutant Hunt. Ozeki is an ordained ZenContinue reading “3.3 In the Editing Room with Ruth Ozeki and Rebecca Evans (EH)”