Kapka Kassabova explores the intersection between past, present and future in her work, and in particular how ancestral legacies and ideologies linger on. We spoke to her about the Balkans, belonging and how to avoid clichés.
Meena Kandasamy is a writer, translator, activist and feminist who challenges comfortable notions of Western feminism, capitalism, and imperialism in her work. We talked to her per email about translating Tamil writers, nationalism and feminism, and the false dichotomy of a political and a private sphere.
Austrian writer Robert Menasse’s The Capital (translated from German by Jamie Bulloch) has been called ‘the first EU novel’. We talked to him about political writing and his belief in the EU as a transnational project.
Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish writer now based in Zagreb. We caught up with her during her book tour to talk about politics, the marketplace of ideas, and how writers in exile are victimised.
Samanta Schweblin is the celebrated author of Fever Dream and Mouthful of Birds. We spoke to her about the relationships she explores in her work, the concept of normality, and how to write about technology.
Elias Khoury is back with My Name Is Adam, the story of a man who decides to investigate what happened in 1948 in Palestine in the city of Lydda where he was born.
We spoke to the author and translator of Frankenstein in Baghdad about the novel’s success, its religious elements and truth in storytelling.
We spoke to poet Mahvash Sabet about her connection to nature, writing poetry while in prison, and why, after all, life is beautiful.
In his novels and non-fiction work, Javier Cercas relentlessly dissects the Spanish past. Most recently, The Impostor (translated by Frank Wynne) was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.
Kenyan writer Peter Kimani talks to us about how he tackled the past in his latest novel, representing otherness, and freedom of speech in Kenya.
Olga Tokarczuk is a prolific Polish writer. Her novel Flights, translated by Jennifer Croft, won the Man Booker International Prize 2018. We spoke to her about being a Central European writer, the current political situation in Poland, and the backlash against her latest book.
Ariana Harwicz's novel Die, My Love (translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff) was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018. We spoke to her about the female voice and how to stay true to yourself as a writer.
We have to work on two fronts. We have to do something about the structures, and we also have to help the individual.
You become an estranged human being, which leads to a certain kind of solitude and loneliness.
'Even if you’re 75 years old and haven’t left the city you’ve grown up in, you have migrated through time. To me, it feels like the theme of being human is being a migrant.'
