The Shakespeare and Company Interview

Originally published by The Stinging Fly Press in Ireland on 2015, Claire-Louise Bennett’s POND found a wider audience with its UK publisher, the then nascent Fitzcarraldo Editions—the paradigm-shifting house that is currently celebrating its 10th birthday. POND is an extraordinarily erudite book, which wears that erudition extraordinarily lightly. It could be understood as being in dialogue with writers such as Huysmans, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, John Berger, as well as with any number of contemporary authors who feel determined that their books should be about something. But POND is also funny, earthy, dirty, silly, profound and confounding. In short, it is unlike anything else, the kind of book that defies the “if you liked this, you’ll like that” algorithm. Just the kind of book we love at S&Co.Buy Pond: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/pond*Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire and studied literature and drama at the University of Roehampton, before moving to Ireland where she worked in and studied theatre for several years. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize and went on to complete her debut book, Pond, which was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2016. Checkout 19 was published by Jonathan Cape in 2021 and was part of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2022 Selection.Claire-Louise's fiction and essays have appeared in a number of publications including The White Review, The Stinging Fly, gorse, Harper's Magazine, Vogue Italia, Music & Literature, and The New York Times magazine. She also writes about art and is a frequent contributor to frieze. In addition she has written for Tate etc., and Artforum, and a number of international exhibition catalogues. In 2016 she was writer-in-residence at Temple Bar Gallery & Studio. In 2020, Milan based art publisher Juxta Press published Fish Out Of Water, an essay Claire-Louise wrote in response to a self-portrait painting by Dorothea Tanning. Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. His latest novel, Beasts of England, a sequel of sorts to Animal Farm, is available now. Buy a signed copy here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/beasts-of-englandListen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy Joycension Day!For this year’s Bloomcast Holiday Special, Alice, Lex, and Adam reunited for a lively discussion of Watt by Samuel Beckett, asking: How does Beckett’s minimalist, disintegrative style compare to James Joyce’s expansive, celebratory storytelling? What makes this novel so uniquely absurd and profound? And why does Watt feel both so playful and deeply unsettling? Is Watt a meticulously structured puzzle or an exercise in unraveling structure itself? What does Watt tell us about Beckett’s influence on modern literature?Setting this enigmatic work against the context of Beckett’s wartime experiences, they also explore how it challenges conventional ideas of narrative, language, and meaning. What is Watt’s lasting impact on readers and thinkers alike? As always, our Bloomcasters invite listeners into a spirited and thought-provoking conversation that bridges literary analysis, philosophical inquiry, and personal reflections…before topping of the conversation with a game so contrived it would make Blazes Boylan blush.*Alice McCrum is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Princeton University. Before starting her graduate work, Alice lived in Paris, where she taught at the Sorbonne, studied public policy at Sciences Po-Paris, and directed cultural programming at the American Library in Paris. Lex Paulson is Director of Executive Programs at the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence (Morocco) and lectures in advocacy and human rights at Sciences Po-Paris. Trained in classics and community organizing, he served as mobilization strategist for the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and Emmanuel Macron in 2017. He served as legislative counsel in the 111th U.S. Congress (2009-2011), organized on six U.S. presidential campaigns, and has worked to advance democratic innovation at the European Commission and in India, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda, Senegal, Czech Republic and Ukraine. He is author of Cicero and the People’s Will: Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic, from Cambridge University Press, and is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance.Adam Biles is an English writer and translator based in Paris. He is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. In 2022, he conceived and presented Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses—an epic, polyphonic celebration of James Joyce’s masterwork. Feeding Time, his first novel, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2016. It was published by Editions Grasset in France in 2018 to great critical acclaim. His second novel, Beasts of England, was published in September 2023 by Galley Beggar Press, and will be published in 2025 by Editions Grasset. It was selected as a "2023 highlight" by The Guardian. A collection of his conversations with writers, The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews, was published by Canongate in October 2023 Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The publication of The Coin by Yasmin Zaher marks the arrival of a determinedly contemporary, sometimes confounding, always compelling voice in English-language literature. Telling the story of a young Palestinian woman, struggling to make her life in New York City, we quickly get to know a woman of complexities and contradictions… She’s the heir to a vast fortune—and with the tastes that match such wealth—but is denied access to her inheritance, and is living on a meagre-ish stipend in one of the world’s most expensive cities. She’s a teacher in a middle school — a job she kind of respects, kind of ridicules, kind of loves, and kind of despises. She’s a woman obsessed with purity and personal hygiene, but who also fully embraces the often impure, sometimes unhygienic, undertaking of casual sex. And she’s a Palestinian whose memories and knowledge of her homeland are ever-receding in the rear view mirror, but who is finding the American soil increasingly resistant to the putting down of roots. With all these tensions, something in her life is going to have to give. And what a ride we’re in for when it does.Buy The Coin: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/the-coin*Yasmin Zaher is a Palestinian journalist and writer born in 1991 in Jerusalem. The Coin is her first novel.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. His latest novel, Beasts of England, a sequel of sorts to Animal Farm, is available now. Buy a signed copy here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/beasts-of-englandListen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a world overwhelmed by complex political challenges and endless commentary, where can we turn for insight into how we got here—and where we might go next? From the survival of democracy to the rise of AI, from confronting inequality to resisting surveillance, today's problems demand deep thinking.In his latest book The History of Ideas, David Runciman explores how the rich history of political thought offers fresh perspectives on contemporary issues. What can the creator of the Panopticon teach us about resisting surveillance? How do the ideas of a former slave and a French Existentialist redefine liberation? And could a utopian novel from 1872 illuminate our understanding of artificial intelligence?David Runciman joined Adam Biles for a spirited journey through radical thinkers and ideas of the past 250 years. Discover how their questions and insights remain strikingly relevant today, and why embracing diverse perspectives is key to understanding our world—and ourselves.Buy The History of Ideas: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/confronting-leviathan-ii*David Runciman is Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge and the former Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies.His previous books for Profile include The Handover, Confronting Leviathan, Where Power Stops and How Democracy Ends. He writes regularly about politics for the London Review of Books, created the widely acclaimed weekly podcast Talking Politics and is host of the new podcast Past Present Future.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. His latest novel, Beasts of England, a to Animal Farm, is available now. Buy a signed copy here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/beasts-of-englandListen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.