The Shakespeare and Company Interview

Shakespeare and Company•www.shakespeareandcompany.com

Discover your next favourite book, or take a deep dive into the mind of an author you love, with The Shakespeare and Company Interview podcast.

Long-form interviews with internationally acclaimed authors, recorded from our bookshop in the heart of Paris. Hosted by S&Co Literary Director, Adam Biles.

Discover all our upcoming events here.

If you enjoy these conversations, you can order The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews here.

Past guests include: Ottessa Moshfegh, Ian McEwan, Ali Smith, Har Kunzru, Rachel Kushner, Katie Kitamura, Elif Shafak, Claire-Louiose Bennett, Leïla Simoni, Ian Dunt, David Runciman, Richard Powers, Eimear McBride, Armando Iannucci, Lauren Grodd, Lauren Elkin, Recebcca Solnit, John Berger, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Rob Doyle, Philippe Sands, George Saunders, Edouard Louis, Rachel Cusk, Preti Taneja, Alejandro Zambra, DBC Pierre, Meg Mason, Sandra Newman, David Simon, Joshua Cohen, Geoff Dyer, David Wallce-Wells, Emul Saint-John Mandel, Mohsin Hamid, Tess Gunty, A.M. Homes, John Higgs, Miriam Toews, Kamila Shamsie, Annie Ernaux, William Boyd, David Keenan, Jonathan Coe, Coco Mellors, Tom Mustill, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Churchwell, Katy Hessel, Don Paterson, Elizabeth McCracken, Meena Kandasamy, Aleksandar Hemon, Catherine Lacey, Xiaolu Guo, M. John Harrison, Dolly Adderton, Hernan Diaz, Kathryn Scanlan, Ben Lerner, Isabel Waidner, Nick Laird, Adam Thirlwell, Mark O'Connell, Marie Darrieussecq, Jo Ann Beard, C Pam Zhang, Naomi Klein...and many, many more.

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Episodes

Meg Mason on Sorrow and Bliss

This week’s guest is Meg Mason, author of the literary sensation Sorrow and Bliss. * 'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Extraordinary' Guardian Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practi...

May 18, 2022•1 hr

📱Love (and Life) in the time of Algorithms, with Jem Calder📱

This week’s guest is guest is Jem Calder, author of Reward System a series of interlinked stories that charts a group of friends in their mid-twenties as they struggle to make something of their lives in an indifferent, often hostile, 21st century metropolis. Sally Rooney said that “Reward System is an exhilarating and beautiful book by an extraordinarily gifted writer. Reading these stories, I found myself thinking newly and differently about contemporary life” while Holly Pester called it “'A ...

May 11, 2022•52 min

🐍🎲Luck, Life and Little Snakes, with DBC Pierre🎲🐍

DBC Pierre’s Big Snake Little Snake is a characteristically freewheeling, riotous account of a couple of years the author lived in the Caribbean, spending his time, among other endeavours, conducting an inquiry into risk. It’s also an extraordinarily fun book, yet with a deep seriousness at its core. Seeking to understand, as it does, how the world can be presented to us as fundamentally indifferent, while also being so clearly, and so often, unfair. Buy Big Snake, Little Snake here: https://sha...

May 04, 2022•57 min

On imagining what hasn’t, can’t and won’t imagine you, with Margo Jefferson

Despite being a lauded writer and critic, despite being the winner of a Pulitzer Prize even, Margo Jefferson innovates and takes risks like a writer with nothing to lose. Her new book, Constructing a Nervous System is both the history of a mind’s formation and the deconstruction of a culture and its tropes, as well as what feels like a form of self-analysis taking place on the page, beneath the readers eyes, in real time. It’s a book about race and gender, but also of family and culture, where a...

Apr 27, 2022•51 min

On Prison, Literature and Grief with Preti Taneja

On 29 November 2019, Usman Kahn attacked and killed Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt at Fishmongers Hall in London, and was later shot dead by police on London Bridge. Jones and Merritt were involved in a prison education programme in which Kahn had participated. All three had gathered at an event that day to mark five years of the programme. Preti Taneja also worked on that programme as a teacher of creative writing in prisons. Jack Merritt oversaw her work. Kahn was one of her students. Aftermath...

Apr 20, 2022•57 min

Superstar Poets and (Step)Fatherhood in Chile, with Alejandro Zambra

Superstar Poets and (Step)Fatherhood in Chile, with Alejandro Zambra What is a Chilean Poet? According to Pru, one of the characters in Alejandro Zambra’s latest novel, ‘Being a Chilean poet is like being a Peruvian chef or a Brazilian soccer player or a Venezuelan model.’ That’s to say they are famous, respected and wealthy…or at least, some of them are. But what makes a Chilean poet? That’s a little harder to pin down, and in a way it’s this question that bugs not only the writer of this extra...

Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 15 min

Rachel Cusk & Siemon Scamell-Katz on Writing, Painting and the Vanishing Sublime

In this special double episode we welcome dear friends of the bookshop Rachel Cusk and Siemon Scamell-Katz. First up is a conversation between Rachel Cusk and Adam Biles about her extraordinary recent novel Second Place, recorded in March in front of a small in store audience. Then, the podcast decamps 28 rue Saint Gille, where Siemon Scamell-Katz’s transcendent exhibition La fin de l’alterité (The End of Otherness), runs until April the 16th. There, Adam talks with Siemon about his exhibition, ...

Apr 06, 2022•1 hr 25 min

📘🎸Special Episode: Music for Ulysses with Alex Freiman🎸📘

In this special episode, we’re joined by Parisian jazz musician Alex Freiman, to discuss the process of composing the theme music for Friends of Shakespeare and Company Read Ulysses Hear more from Alex Freiman here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Follow Alex Freiman on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/alex.guitarfreiman/ * Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? Listen here: https://podfollow.com/sandc...

Apr 01, 2022•36 min

George Saunders on Reading Better, Writing Better, and Living Better

To mark the paperback release of George Saunders’s extraordinary reading and writing guide A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, we are delighted to release this conversation from last year—previously only available to Friends of Shakespeare and Company. * SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and earl...

Mar 30, 2022•53 min

Memory, Guilt and the Hunt for a Nazi Fugitive with Philippe Sands

One way Philippe Sands has described his extraordinary new book The Ratline is as “a sort of Nazi love story”. While there is certainly a love-story between two Nazis at its heart—specifically the marriage of Otto and Charlotte Wachter—The Ratline is so much more than that. It’s an investigation into the escape routes used by high-ranking German officials after the end of the Second World War, that reads at times, like a spy-thriller. It’s a study of memory, responsibility and guilt. It’s an exa...

Mar 23, 2022•50 min

Global Disorder and the road to war in Ukraine, with Helen Thompson

As its title suggests, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century is a book about the many and varied crises our world is facing. However by tracing the roots of these crises back over decades rather than years, and by focussing less on the political or economic shocks themselves, and more on the systemic and cross-continental fault lines that allowed for and amplified these shocks, Disorder, acts as a welcome antidote the short-termism and parochial thinking that has come to define a lot of polit...

Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 6 min

On the Pleasures (and Pains) of Rereading, with Rob Doyle

We speak with novelist Rob Doyle about his new book Autobibliography in which he recounts a year spent rereading 52 books. Detailing the memories the books unearthed and the impact they had on him Autobibliography is a fascinating insight into the apprenticeship of one of our most exciting young novelists and a full-throated, although not unambiguous celebration of the power of literature. Buy Autobibliography here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781800750524/autobibliography * SUBSCRIBE N...

Mar 09, 2022•54 min

Dostoyevsky, the Parisian murderer, and the creation of a masterpiece, with Kevin Birmingham

In The Sinner and the Saint , Kevin Birmingham deftly unpicks the personal, societal, historical and philosophical forces that led Fyodor Dostoyeksky—isolated, indebted, beset by epileptic seizures—to take up his pen in the summer of 1865 and begin writing Crime and Punishment, and shows how it’s impossible to understand the invention of Rasklonikov without also getting to grips with the mind of a French murderer-poet who charmed and outraged Parisian society, in almost equal measure, three deca...

Mar 02, 2022•57 min

An insider’s history of Rock & Roll, with Lenny Kaye

This week we’re joined by the legendary guitarist, composer, record producer, writer, and founding member of Patti Smith and Her Band, Lenny Kaye to discuss his epic and illuminating new book Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock & Roll Buy Lighting Striking here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781474615075/lightning-striking * SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS FEATURES Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses If you want t...

Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 8 min

Poetry, class, and radical performance, with Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen

Back in November, Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen dropped by the bookshop for a reading and a chat. The conversation touched on poetry, class, adapting the Greeks, artistic cross-pollination, the perks of being Scottish writer, and how midwives are the toughest crowd of all . . . Buy Slug here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780349726366/slug-the-sunday-times-bestseller Buy Oyster here: Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore * SUBSCR...

Feb 16, 2022•55 min

Valentine's Special Love, Language and London with Xiaolu Guo

For the Valentine’s week episode of our podcast, we were joined by Xiaolu Guo to discuss her intense, fragmentary meditation on the nature of love, A Lover’s Discourse. Buy A Lover’s Discourse here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781529112481/a-lovers-discourse Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore * SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS FEATURES If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus ...

Feb 10, 2022•47 min

Comedy and the Culture Wars, with Andrew Hankinson

This week’s guest is Andrew Hankinson, author of the brilliant Don't applaud. Either laugh or don't. (At the Comedy Cellar.), a book about three things: 1. A room called the Comedy Cellar. 2. Who gets to speak in that room. 3. What they get to say. Buy Don't applaud. Either laugh or don't. (At the Comedy Cellar.) here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781911617686/dont-applaud-either-laugh-or-dont-at-the-comedy-cellar Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-...

Feb 03, 2022•1 hr 4 min

Patrick Hastings, The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses

In anticipation of the first episode of Friends of Shakespeare and Company Read Ulysses this Wednesday, we were delighted to talk to former S&Co tumbleweed Patrick Hastings, and the creator of UlyssesGuide.com, about The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses, his essential companion to this modernist classic.Buy The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/d/9781421443492/the-guide-to-james-joyces-ulysses*SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR EARLY EPISODES AND BONUS FEATURESAll episodes ...

Jan 29, 2022•1 hr 3 min

Nadifa Mohamed on The Fortune Men

This week’s guest is Booker-shortlisted Nadifa Mohamed discussing The Fortune Men a gripping fictional portrayal of a real miscarriage of justice in 1950s Cardiff.Buy The Fortune Men here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780241466940/the-fortune-men-shortlisted-for-the-costa-novel-of-the-year-awardBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore*SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS FEATURESIf you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can...

Jan 27, 2022•53 min

Introducing Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses

2nd February - 16th June 2022 933 Pages, 110 readers, (roughly) 70 characters, 18 Sections, 5 months, 1 book. 100 years. Friends of Shakespeare and Company read ULYSSES by James Joyce To listen, subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. Friends of Shakespeare and Company read ULYSSES is conceived and produced at Shakespeare and Company in Paris by S&Co Literary Director Adam Biles in collaboration with Professor Lex Paulson, and in partnership with Penguin Classics and Hay Festival. Find...

Jan 20, 2022•43 sec

Rebecca Solnit on Orwell’s Roses

Our guest this week is the wonderful Rebecca Solnit discussing Orwell’s Roses, her fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener, whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world. Buy Orwell’s Roses here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781783788620/orwells-roses Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore * SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS FEATURES If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now ...

Jan 20, 2022•1 hr 2 min

A Parisian bus ride with Lauren Elkin

For our first podcast of 2022 we leave the bookshop and take to the buses of Paris for a conversation with Lauren Elkin, author of No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute. Buy No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9781838014186/no-9192-notes-on-a-parisian-commute * SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS FEATURES If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes including: An initiation into the world of rar...

Jan 13, 2022•46 min

Claire Messud on A Dream Life

This week we’re joined by Claire Messud to discuss A Dream Life, her drily funny, deeply perceptive story about displacement, and class, and social climbing, and the effect that having domestic staff can have not only on one’s family, but on one’s sense of self.Buy A Dream Life here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/d/9781649697295/a-dream-lifeBrowse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore*“A perfect frolic of a book, puffed on breezes of beauty and...

Dec 30, 2021•49 min

BONUS: Cerys Matthews reads A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas

As a little treat this Christmas, we’re delighted to bring you an extract of Cerys Matthews reading A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas. Cerys read the same extract when she last visited us at the bookshop in December 2015. It was such a magical moment that, when we learned that Cerys had recorded this story for posterity, we asked if we could share some of it with you. The full version is available on CD here: https://cerysmatthews.co.uk/product/dylan-thomas-a-childs-christmas-poems-a...

Dec 24, 2021•9 min

Sarah Hall on Burntcoat

This week Adam is joined by Sarah Hall, author of Burntcoat a novel of and for our times. Called “dark and brilliant” by Sarah Moss and “a masterpiece” by Daisy Johnson, much like the Japanese burnt timber technique evoked in the book, Burntcoat leaves readers scarred but fortified, more ready to face life’s elements. Buy Burntcoat here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780571329328/burntcoat Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore * You w...

Dec 23, 2021•59 min

Welcome to Shakespeare and Company: Writers, Books and Paris

Welcome to the Shakespeare and Company podcast. Every week or so we release a new conversation with an internationally acclaimed author, recorded at our store in the heart of Paris. Recent guests have included Elif Shafak, Richard Powers, Leïla Slimani, Lauren Groff, Armando Iannucci and many more. And for those of you who want to spend even more time here at Kilometre Zero, you can now subscribe for just three euros a month. For that, you’ll get exclusive access to regular bonus episodes includ...

Dec 16, 2021•59 sec

Aysegül Savas on White on White

This week Aysegül Savaş joined Adam live in our writer’s studio to discuss White on White , her book about art and artists, parents and their children, beauty and class, as well as the quest for perfection and the compromises we make in pursuit of it. White on White was called "marvelous" by Lauren Groff and "gentle, mysterious and profound” by Marina Abramović. Buy White on White here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/I/9780593330517/white-on-white-a-novel Browse our online store here: https:/...

Dec 16, 2021•48 min

Philip Hoare on Albert & the Whale

This week Philip Hoare discusses Albert & the Whale his dive into the mind of Albrecht Durer, one of the most well-known yet mysterious of artists. Mysterious because he lived at that fluid time, in the fifteenth century, where history and legend often blend into one. Mysterious because his works feel so replete with meaning and yet prove so hard to interpret. And mysterious because his skills were so advanced, his genius so profound, that his techniques are hard to replicate even more than ...

Dec 09, 2021•58 min

Lauren Groff on Matrix

This week Adam is joined by Lauren Groff, whose latest novel Matrix an extraordinary story of transformation, visions, leaps of faith, vicious battles, friendship, and creativity, as well as — to cite USA Today — “a character study to rival Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell”. Matrix is a true original, unlike any literary experience you will have this year, probably one of the many reasons for which it was selected as a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award.Buy Matrix here: https://shakespeare...

Dec 02, 2021•54 min

Poets Richard Barnett and Luke Kennard in conversation

This week Adam is joined by poets Richard Barnett and Luke Kennard. Richard Barnet’s WHEREVER WE ARE WHEN WE COME TO THE END is an imagining of the experience of the young Ludwig Wittgenstein in the First World War, recounted in the same austere and succinct statements as the philosopher’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, the initial notes for which were taken during the conflict. The result is an affecting examination of love, duty and violence that had such a strong impact on me that it sent me...

Nov 25, 2021•56 min

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