The Shakespeare and Company Interview cover art

All Episodes

The Shakespeare and Company Interview — 210 episodes

#
Title
1

Alain Delon, Murder and Paris ’68, with Edward Chisholm

2

BLOOMCAST: 🎬Ulysses Movie Watch-along Special🎬

3

Fear Less: Tracy K. Smith on Poetry in Perilous Times

4

Editions - Episode 1 - Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes with Taìno Mendez

5

Lea Ypi: Dignity, Fiction, and the Lives History Erases

6

Shelter and Storm: Arundhati Roy on Writing Her Mother

7

Ben Lerner on Transcription

8

Why Translate Homer Again? Daniel Mendelsohn on his new Odyssey

9

Rare Book Collecting with Ben Brown

10

Going South: Tash Aw on Inheritance, Identity, and Escape

11

Booker Prize Winner David Szalay on Agency, Violence, and Restraint

12

Murder, Mannerism and the Medicis with Laurent Binet

13

George Saunders: Fiction, Free Will, and the Question of Redemption

14

Narrative Amid Trauma: Emily LaBarge in conversation

15

See It, Say It, Sorted: Jonathan Coe’s Genre-Bending Novel

16

Books Matter More Than Ever: A Conversation with Ian Patterson

17

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, with Ian Leslie

18

When Stories Fall Apart: Miriam Robinson on Love, Loss, and Truth

19

Why We Write, Why We Live, with Miriam Toews

20

How France Lost Its Way, with Andrew Hussey

21

Philippe Sands: Pinochet, Walter Rauff, and the Shadows of History

22

Moonlight Express: Monisha Rajesh on the Magic of Night Trains

23

Twenty Writers, One Bookshop: The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews, now in paperback

24

Small Girl, Big Ideas: Getting to know Mafalda, with Samanta Schweblin and Frank Wynne

25

Calls May Be Recorded: Lipstick, Loneliness, and Late Capitalism with Katharina Volckmer

26

The Shape of Survival: Eimear McBride on Love, Art, and the City

27

Katie Kitamura on Fiction’s Shifting Realities

28

Renton Returns, Sick Boy in Love: Irvine Welsh Reimagines His Antiheroes

29

Inside the Story Machine: Natasha Brown on Media, Power, and Fiction

30

Making Sense of Gertrude Stein, with Francesca Wade

31

Geoff Dyer’s Homework: Family, Class, and Memory

32

Rebecca Solnit: Changing the Story, Changing the World

33

The Book That Refuses to End: Catherine Lacey on The Möbius Book

34

Writing the Unspeakable: Neige Sinno on Abuse, Memory, and Language

35

On the Edge of the Real: Guadalupe Nettel on The Accidentals

36

William Blake, Sea Monsters, and the Ecstasy of Art, with Philip Hoare

37

Overnight: Dan Richards on Sleep, Service, and the Secrets of the Small Hours

38

Bruise, Heal, Repeat: Anna Whitwham on On Boxing, Loss, and the Female Body

39

Solvej Balle on Time, Wonder, and Writing the Impossible *International Booker Prize Shortlist*

40

Nobel Prizewinner Abdulrazak Gurnah on Theft, Love, and the Power of Fiction

41

BONUS: Jeremy Pelt on Preserving Jazz Through Storytelling

42

Reimagining Moby-Dick, with Xiaolu Guo

43

2016: The Year That Broke Us - with poet and oral-historian Sarah Hesketh

44

The Power of Voice – Sulaiman Addonia on The Seers

45

Acts of Resistance: Amber Massie-Blomfield on the Power of Art to Shape a Better World

46

Democracy at Risk: Salomé Saqué on Resisting the Far Right

47

Bloomcast Holiday Special: Watt by Samuel Beckett, Episode 2

48

Claire-Louise Bennett returns to the Pond

49

Bloomcast Holiday Special: Watt by Samuel Beckett, Episode 1

50

Yasmin Zaher on The Coin

51

David Runciman: “The history of ideas is about letting people believe in things that they hadn't previously thought possible…”

52

Dorian Lynskey on the Stories We Tell About the End of the World…

53

Emmanuel Carrère on V13: “A unique experience of horror, pity, proximity and presence…”

54

Denis Hirson: “They Called My Father A One-Man Revolution”

55

BONUS: Lauren Elkin on Scaffolding (in conversation with Amanda Dennis)

56

Colombe Schneck on The Paris Trilogy (with Translator Natasha Lehrer)

57

Lynne Tillman on American History, Human Absurdity, and why Trump should have become a Comedian

58

Ayşegül Savaş on Love, Rootlessness, and “The Age of Poetry”

59

On the State of the (Book)World, with Lauren Groff and Neel Mukherjee (live in Edinburgh)

60

Rachel Kushner on Creation Lake (Booker Prize SHORTLIST 2024)

61

Ferdia Lennon on Glorious Exploits

62

Roxy Dunn on As Young As This

63

Poetry: Ishion Hutchinson reads from and discusses School of Instructions

64

Michael Donkor on Grow Where They Fall

65

Writing Against Normality, with Samanta Schweblin

66

Parenting in the age of AI, with Helen Phillips

67

Creating Life from Art, with Catherine Lacey

68

Paul Murray on The Bee Sting

69

Claire Kilroy on Parenting under the Patriarchy

70

Rachel Cusk on Art, Violence and Freedom through Destruction

71

When Radical Art meets Obscene Wealth, with Hari Kunzru

72

Sheila Heti on Alphabetical Diaries

73

BONUS: Celebrating Dylan Thomas with Cerys Matthews…with exclusive live music from Flora Hibberd!

74

Viet Thanh Nguyen on Memory, Migration and Model Minorities

75

Ottessa Moshfegh on bringing Eileen to the screen

76

Percival Everett on James, his subversive reimagining of Huckleberry Finn

77

On Allen Ginsberg: His life, his work and his archives, with Pat Thomas and Peter Hale

78

Bidding adieu to Freeman’s literary journal, with Jakuta Alikavazovic, Deborah Landau, Juan Gabriel Vazquez, and John Freeman

79

On Friendship, with Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen

80

Love in the Time of Creative-Writing Classes, with Brandon Taylor

81

Annabelle Hirsch, A History of Women in 101 Objects

82

☕Proust Questionnaire: Holly McNish & Michael Pedersen☕

83

BLOOMCAST | HOLIDAY SPECIAL | THE DEAD

84

😱On Witold Gombrowicz’s The Possessed, with Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Adam Thirlwell😱

85

👭🏼Naomi Klein on Doppelgangers, Conspiracy Theories, and the Shadowlands we all inhabit…👭🏼

86

Claire-Louise Bennett on Nightflowers, her immersive installation at Museum of Literature Ireland

87

🥘On Eating through the Endtimes, with C Pam Zhang🥘

88

🐕On Life, Art and the Line Between the Two, with Jo Ann Beard🐕

89

👁️Sandra Newman on Julia, her re-imagining of George Orwell’s 1984 👁️

90

⛵Bidding adieu to a literary journal, with John Freeman (Feat. readings from Sandra Cisneros, Aleksandar Hemon, Rebecca Makkai, and Mieko Kawakami read by translator Hitomi Yoshio)⛵

91

🛏️On Not Sleeping, with Marie Darrieussecq🛏️

92

🐖On Populism, Post-Truth, and Piggybacking George Orwell. Adam Biles in conversation with Rob Doyle.🐖

93

💎Sunday Poetry: Emilie Moorhouse reads from Emerald Wounds, her new translation of the poems of Joyce Mansour💎

94

🧠On Making Sense of a Murderer, with Mark O’Connell🧠

95

🗞️On Power, Pamphlets, Parties and Possible Worlds, with Adam Thirlwell🗞️

96

🪄On the KLF, Conspiracies, and Chaos with John Higgs🪄

97

Sunday Poetry: Nick Laird reads from Up Late

98

On Writing, Wormholes, and Wasted Opportunities, with Isabel Waidner

99

🏫On writing and translating The Topeka School, with Ben Lerner and Jakuta Alikavazovic🏫

100

🏇On Blood, Sweat and Racetracking, with Kathryn Scanlan🏇

101

BONUS: Lex Paulson on Cicero and the Future of Democracy

102

Hernan Diaz on his Pulitzer Prizewinning novel, Trust

103

Proust Questionnaire: Dolly Alderton!

104

Leïla Slimani on Inheritance, Hippies and the Literature of Disappointment

105

BONUS: Martin Amis in conversation with Will Self (2010)

106

On Anti-Memoir, the Weird, and New Kinds of Disaster, with M. John Harrison

107

On Unclassifiable Books and Uncategorisable Lives, with Xiaolu Guo

108

How Westminster Works . . . and Why it Doesn’t, with Ian Dunt

109

✖️On Art, Alternative Histories, and the Arbitrariness of Life with Catherine Lacey✖️

110

📚How to Resist Amazon and Why, with Danny Caine📚

111

On Old Wounds, Finding Peace, and Returning Home, with Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse

112

🗺️On Sarajevo, Multiple Worlds and History at the Fringes, with Aleksandar Hemon🗺️

113

❤️‍🔥Valentine’s Special: Meena Kandasamy on The Book of Desire❤️‍🔥

114

On Parents, Grief and the difference between Fiction and Memoir, with Elizabeth McCracken

115

🎸Music, Sugar and other Obsessions, with Don Paterson🎸

116

📚Books of the Year📚

117

👩‍🎨Katy Hessel on The Story of Art Without Men👩‍🎨

118

📘BLOOMCAST | HOLIDAY SPECIAL📘

119

🔥Sarah Churchwell on Gone with the Wind, January 6th, and the Lies America Tells🔥

120

🔔Hunchback of Notre-Dame Special! 🔔

121

🐋How to Speak to Whales (and other animals…) with Tom Mustill🐋

122

💋On Love, Loss and Life in New York, with Coco Mellors💋

123

On Writing the Queer, Indigenous Experience with Billy-Ray Belcourt

124

🍫Jonathan Coe on Bournville🍫

125

🍄Psychedelic Storytelling, DIY Magick, and the New Masculinity, with David Keenan🍄

126

🥊 Miriam Toews on Sweary Matriarchs, the Absurdity of Life, and the Human Imperative to Experience Joy🥊

127

🎤 Sunday Poetry: Mark Polizzotti reads his new translations of Arthur Rimbaud🎤

128

🎈William Boyd, The Romantic🎈

129

🏅BONUS: Annie Ernaux, Nobel Prize in Literature🏅

130

🐴💰On Friendship and Redemption in the time of the Gold Rush, with Paddy Crewe💰🐴

131

👭🏽On Friendship, Politics and when the Two Collide, with Kamila Shamsie👭🏽

132

🎸🤵‍♂️The Beatles, James Bond and the British Psyche ,with John Higgs🤵‍♂️🎸

133

🎤 Sunday Poetry: Tayi Tibble reads from Poūkahangatus🎤

134

🎹Ian McEwan on Lessons🎹

135

🇺🇸 A.M. Homes on Satire, the American Dream, and Reaching Across the Political Divide🇺🇸

136

🐇On Transcendence, Parental Failure & writing Indiana, with Tess Gunty🐇

137

☭🎩When Young Stalin came to London, with Stephen May🎩☭

138

After Sappho, with Selby Wynn Schwartz

139

👨🏼✨Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man✨👨🏾

140

⏳Time Travel, Autofiction & Never-ending Book Tours, with Emily St John Mandel⌛

141

🎓😵‍💫Disorientation: A Wild Satire of 21st-Century Campus Life, with Elaine Hsieh Chou😵‍💫🎓

142

🇬🇧🔨How Britain Broke the World, with Arthur Snell🔨🇬🇧

143

🎾Geoff Dyer on Roger Federer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sensing an Ending…🎾

144

👨‍❤️‍👨On Love, Grief and Male Friendship, with Michael Pedersen👨‍❤️‍👨

145

🎙️🍃Ali Smith on Companion Piece (live in the bookshop!)🍃🎙️

146

🐑Ottessa Moshfegh on Power, Magic…and her Pirate Ancestors🐑

147

🥀On Darkness, Fables and Heartbreak, with Vanessa Onwuemezi🥀

148

A World Without Men, with Sandra Newman (Live at Hey Festival)

149

On Bodies, Freedom and Change, with Olivia Laing

150

Meg Mason on Sorrow and Bliss

151

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

152

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

153

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

154

On Prison, Literature and Grief with Preti Taneja

155

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

156

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

157

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

158

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

159

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

160

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

161

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

162

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

163

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

164

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

165

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

166

Comedy and the Culture Wars, with Andrew Hankinson

167

Patrick Hastings, The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses

168

Nadifa Mohamed on The Fortune Men

169

Introducing Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses

170

Rebecca Solnit on Orwell’s Roses

171

A Parisian bus ride with Lauren Elkin

172

Claire Messud on A Dream Life

173

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

174

Sarah Hall on Burntcoat

175

Welcome to Shakespeare and Company: Writers, Books and Paris

176

Aysegül Savas on White on White

177

Philip Hoare on Albert & the Whale

178

Lauren Groff on Matrix

179

Poets Richard Barnett and Luke Kennard in conversation

180

Katharina Volckmer on The Appointment

181

Armando Iannucci on Pandemonium

182

Eimear McBride on Something Out of Place: Women and Disgust

183

Richard Powers on Bewilderment

184

BONUS PODCAST* Poetry from Archipelago Books

185

David Runciman on Confronting Leviathan

186

Anuk Arudpragasam on A Passage North

187

Ian Dunt on How to Be a Liberal

188

Leïla Slimani on The Country of Others

189

Tom McCarthy on The Making of Incarnation

190

Claire-Louise Bennett on Checkout 19

191

David Keenan on Monument Maker

192

Elif Shafak on The Island of Missing Trees

193

Pola Oloixarac and John Freeman, in conversation

194

Katie Kitamura on Intimacies

195

Jakuta Alikavazovic on Night As It Falls

196

Laurent Binet on Civilisations

197

Eliot Higgins on We Are Bellingcat: An Intelligence Agency for the People

198

Pragya Agarwal on (M)otherhood

199

Mark Stevens & Annalyn Swan on Francis Bacon: Revelations

200

Jennifer Lucy Allan on The Foghorn's Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast

201

Hari Kunzru on Red Pill

202

Rob Doyle and Rachel Kushner in conversation

203

Niven Govinden & Musa Okwonga in conversation

204

Ece Temelkuran on Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now

205

Rosa Rankin-Gee on Dreamland

206

Jenni Fagan and Salena Godden in conversation with Adam Biles

207

An extract from Pond, read by Claire-Louise Bennett

208

Renga through a Lockdown with Marilyn Hacker and Karthika Naïr

209

Lindsey Tramuta on The New Parisienne

210

John Freeman reads from The Park