Listen Now

For this episode, we’re thrilled to be collaborating with the brilliant Fitzcarraldo Editions to bring you an exclusive extract from the audiobook of their modern classic Pond, performed by its author Claire-Louise Bennett. You can buy the audiobook from the publisher’s website www.fitzcarraldoeditions.com, and of course you can buy a physical copy of Pond from our online store, www.shakespeareandcompany.com where you can also find all manner of new and rare books, gifts, and tote bags, which we ship from Paris to wherever you are in the world. About Claire-Louise Bennett Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire in the southwest of England. Her short fiction and essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, The Penny Dreadful, The Moth, Colony, The Irish Times, The White Review and gorse. She was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize in 2013 and has received bursaries from the Arts Council Ireland and Galway City Council. Pond is her first collection of stories. Music, as always, by Alex Freiman from his album, Play it Gentle, available on our online store: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/search?q=Alex+freiman&type=books

We were delighted to welcome Karthika Naïr and Marilyn Hacker back to the bookshop. During lockdown, Marilyn and Karthika began writing Renga — a collaborative form of Japanese poetry — to each other, building up a beautiful and compelling body of work that engages with both the micro and the macro of this unprecedented moment. This meeting was the first time that these close friends had been in the same room as each other for several months, and their readings ring with the sorrow of separation but also the joy of rediscovery. * Renga through a Lockdown: Shortly after France declared a full lockdown in March 2020, Marilyn Hacker invited Karthika Naïr to join her in creating a renga. Renga, literally “linked poem”, is the ancient Japanese form of collaborative poetry, which has evolved a little through the ages. Poets take turns to compose alternating tanka (5-7-5 and 7-7 syllabled-lines in the stanza) and each poet begins their opening line with word/s or idea/s from the preceding poem. Marilyn and Karthika’s renga are chronicles of their daily lives through the months of lockdown, triggered as much by immediate experiences in Paris as by echoes and concerns from friends and family in the US, Lebanon, India and elsewhere. And while both live in Paris, the distance between their homes (one in the 3rd arrondissement, the other in the 10th) - usually one of a few miles - seemed to multiply in this new world, with neighbourhoods transforming into distinct, new, terrain.  If you’d like to see a video of some of these readings, keep an eye on the social media of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival. * Marilyn Hacker is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Blazons ( 2019) and A Stranger’s Mirror(2015) , a book of essays, Unauthorized Voices (2010),  a collaborative book, Diaspo/Renga, written with Deema K. Shehabi (2014) and  seventeen books of translations of French and Francophone poets, most recently Samira Negrouche’s The Olive Trees’ Jazz (2020). She received the 2009 American PEN Award for poetry in translation, and the international Argana Prize for Poetry from the Beit as-Sh’ir/ House of Poetry in Morocco in 2011. She lives in Paris.  Find more of Marilyn’s work here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marilyn-hacker Karthika Naïr is the author of several books, including The Honey Hunter, illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet. She has helmed the scripts of several dance productions, such as the multiple-award-winning DESH (2011), Akram Khan’s dance solo. Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata, her reimagining in verse of the Mahabharata, won the 2015 Tata Literature Live! Award for Book of the Year (Fiction), and was highly commended at the 2016 Forward Prizes (UK). Naïr’s poetry has been widely published in anthologies and journals across the world, including Granta, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Magazine, Indian Literature, The Wolf, and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. She is a 2012 Sangam House Fellow, a 2013 Toji Foundation Fellow and was awarded a Villa Marguerite Yourcenar Fellowship in 2015. Her latest book is the collaborative Over and Under Ground in Mumbai & Paris (2018), a travelogue in verse, written with Sampurna Chattarji, and illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet and Roshni Vyam. Find more of Karthika’s work here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150393/remaindering-habits And here: https://www.danceumbrella.co.uk/2017/08/29/six-degrees-otherness-part-2/

We were delighted to be joined by Lindsey Tramuta to discuss her second book The New Parisienne—her fascinating follow-up to The New Paris—in which she explores the women and ideas shaping the French capital. We have a limited number of signed copies of The New Parisienne available in our online store: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/s/9781419742811/the-new-parisienne-the-women-ideas-shaping-paris

Welcome back to the Shakespeare and Company Podcast. We’re thrilled to return with a reading from a dear friend of the bookshop, John Freeman, reading from his new book of poetry The Park, a collection inspired by the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. * Thanks for listening! We're now able to ship orders again. If you want to support Shakespeare and Company through this tough period, and bring a little taste of the bookshop to wherever you are in the world, please consider placing an order for a book or a gift, subscribing to a Year of Reading, or purchasing a gift voucher for future use. Visit our website www.shakespeareandcompany.com

We were joined by Lisa Brennan-Jobs to discuss her frank, smart and captivating account of growing up in California, as the daughter of iconoclastic Apple founder Steve Jobs.

We were joined by the wonderful James Gregor to read from and discuss Going Dutch, his “novel of simply unremitting goodness” (Gary Shteyngart).

We were joined by Casey Cep whose Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee brings the incredible story of a Reverend serial killer and his murder trial to light, interwoven with a vivid, elegiac account of Harper Lee’s quest to write another book.

We were joined by Greta Bellamacina for the launch of Poemas (2015-2018), her latest collection, published in a bilingual (English/Spanish) edition by Valparaíso. She was joined by poets from New River Press reading from current and forthcoming releases.

We were joined by the Desmond Elliot-shortlisted author of Harmless Like You to read from her moving new novel Starling Days.

We celebrated the winners of the 2nd annual Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, a prize for innovative and experimental fiction based out of the Madrid bookshop Desperate Literature.

We were joined by Valeria Luiselli to discuss her "impossibly smart . . . highly readable and important" (Tommy Orange) new novel Lost Children Archive.

We were joined by Daniel Levin Becker, Nina Leger and Daniel Medin to discuss the politics of translation.

We were joined by Ariana Harwicz to celebrate the translation of her stunning second novel Feebleminded.

For our last event of 2018 we were joined by one of our greatest storytellers, the wonderful Michael Morpurgo.

We were joined by Carol Ann Duffy for a reading from her extraordinary new collection of poems, and her final as Poet Laureate, Sincerity.

We were joined by the exceptional Jonathan Coe to discuss of his latest satirical masterpiece, Middle England.

We were joined by Marina Benjamin to discuss her latest book Insomnia, a beautifully written insight into the struggles of living with a sleeping disorder.

Since its publication in 2008, Annie Ernaux’s The Years has captivated audiences. We were joined by Ernaux almost ten years later, as this hailed masterpiece receives its English translation. Joining the conversation was Annie Ernaux's American publisher Dan Simon (Seven Stories Press).

We were joined by the fantastic Richard Powers to discuss his latest Booker-longlisted novel The Overstory.

We were joined by one of the titans of Science Fiction, Michael Moorcock, in conversation with renowned novelist Hari Kunzru.