Ratmansky talked to Eleanor Wachtel about his new work, Of Love and Rage, and creating Romeo and Juliet for the National Ballet of Canada.

Writers and Company from CBC Radio

Star choreographer Alexei Ratmansky makes breathtaking ballet out of classic literature

The author of the hit novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit spoke to Eleanor Wachtel in 2012 about her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?

Jeanette Winterson brings humour and understanding to a fraught childhood.

The award-winning cartoonist speaks to Eleanor Wachtel about his latest book, Rusty Brown, and the childhood experiences that helped shape his career.

Comic book artist Chris Ware brings complex stories to life in pictures

Matar's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, The Return, is about his return to his native Libya to search for the truth behind the disappearance of his father, a prominent political dissident of the Gaddafi regime. Now Matar has written a new book - A Month in Siena - about a more recent journey and a meditation on the relationship between history and art, grief and consolation. Matar joins Eleanor to talk about his new book and his life.

From Tripoli to Tuscany—Libyan writer Hisham Matar finds new connections between art and life

The award-winning British author, now living in Toronto, speaks to Eleanor about his his wide-ranging fiction and poetry

Adam Foulds on celebrity, solitude and the madness of desire

The brilliant literary critic, writer and thinker talked to Eleanor Wachtel in 1995 about the power of human speech. Steiner died on Feb. 3, 2020, at the age of 90.

George Steiner on morality, his love of books and the marvels of language

The youngest of twelve children, and raised by her widowed mother, Sarah Broom grew up in the challenging neighbourhood of New Orleans East. She writes about her upbringing, her home and the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on her community.

Sarah Broom on family bonds and the meaning of home in her award-winning memoir, The Yellow House

Winner of the 2019 National Book Award, Trust Exercise is a timely exploration of sexual politics, fiction and truth. Choi talks to Eleanor Wachtel about the novel, and about exploring the experiences of Asian-American characters in her work.

Susan Choi's Trust Exercise is an intense coming-of-age story — with a surprising twist

The co-winner of the 2019 Man Booker Prize talks to Eleanor Wachtel about her ambitious novel, and about growing up in a large, mixed-race family in London in the 1960s and '70s.

Bernardine Evaristo on black British identity and her Booker-winning novel, Girl, Woman, Other

Art critic Laura Cumming spoke to Eleanor Wachtel about her latest book, Five Days Gone, an investigation into her mother's disappearance as a child in 1929.

How Laura Cumming unearthed the truth about her mother's kidnapping, 90 years later

The Serbian-American author spoke to Eleanor Wachtel about mythology and ghosts in her acclaimed novels The Tiger's Wife and Inland.

The haunted landscapes of Téa Obreht — from the Balkans to the American West

Eleanor Wachtel’s conversation from 2000 with Jonathan Miller, the extraordinary British writer, performer, satirist, medical doctor, stage and opera director and artist. He died on Nov. 27, 2019.

The multi-talented Jonathan Miller: a life of creativity, curiosity and comedy

Eleanor Wachtel's 2014 conversation with Middlemarch enthusiasts Rebecca Mead, Nancy Henry and Francine Prose, to mark George Eliot's bicentenary.

The enduring appeal of Middlemarch, 200 years after George Eliot's birth

To mark the centenary of the birth of Primo Levi, the British writers join Eleanor Wachtel to reflect on the late Italian author's exceptional writing about the Holocaust, science and humanity.

Martin Amis and Ian Thomson on the legacy of Primo Levi

The acclaimed author spoke to Eleanor Wachtel about his award-winning novel Resistance, which explores the experience of his family who were forced to flee Argentina's dictatorship.

Brazilian novelist Julián Fuks on exile, identity and dictatorship

CBC Radio's Writers and Company offers an opportunity to explore in depth the lives, thoughts and works of remarkable writers from around the world. Hosted by Eleanor Wachtel.

hubhopper

Writers and Company from CBC Radio

hubhopper