This week we discuss Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes. The illustrious Simon Thomas, our first-ever guest, helps us understand how the 1920s trend for the fantastic helped produce this weird, wonderful book about a spinster aunt who sells her soul to Satan. But is it satire? And is it really a feminist manifesto? We tackle these and other pertinent questions while having a laugh along the way. Butter your villager-shaped scones, sit back and enjoy the broomstick ride.
Poet and writer Alina Stefanescu joins us to discuss her own pantheon of "tortured poets" in the wake of a pop star's adoption of...
Chris Clarke joins us to discuss his new translation of Raymond Queneau's The Skin of Dreams. This delightful novel follows the wild imaginings of...
Author Laila Lalami joins us to discuss Tayeb Salih's novel Season of Migration to the North translated from Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. We talk...
