Shakespeare And Company

In this episode, Adam Biles is joined in the bookshop’s writing studio by Anna Whitwham, author of Soft Tissue Damage, a raw and electrifying memoir of grief, boxing, and womanhood. Following her mother’s death, Whitwham trained and fought competitively as a boxer—an act of both healing and reckoning. She discusses how physical pain can become a language for emotional anguish, how class and family history shaped her connection to the sport, and how boxing offered a surprising community of tenderness and care. A conversation about loss, rage, strength, and the power of being witnessed.Buy Soft Tissue Damage: https://roughtradebooks.com/collections/books/products/soft-tissue-damage-anna-whitwham*Anna Whitwham was born in 1981 in London, where she still lives. She studied Drama and English at the University of California, Los Angeles, Queens University Belfast and at Royal Holloway, London where she teaches a course called ‘Writing Men: The Burden of Masculinity’.She is the author of Boxer Handsome (Chatto&W

In this episode recorded live at Shakespeare and Company, celebrated Danish author Solvej Balle returns to the bookshop she once called home to discuss her monumental literary project On the Calculation of Volume. The novel’s protagonist, Tara Selter, finds herself reliving November 18th—again and again—opening up a profound meditation on time, memory, isolation, and human existence. Balle reflects on the decades-long journey of crafting this work, the philosophical underpinnings of time loops, and the quiet radicalism of writing it from a female perspective. Touching on everything from Ulysses to Groundhog Day, to quantum physics, she shares how her character emerged through a process of deep listening and experimentation. Tara's attempts to replicate seasons and find meaning through repetition prompt larger questions about how we process time, our relationships, and the rituals that structure our lives. Balle reveals how a “stupid idea” turned into a seven-volume epic currently shortlisted for the Internati

Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah sits down with Adam Biles in store to discuss his new novel, Theft. Their conversation delves into the intricate interplay between personal history and the enduring legacy of colonialism, examines the complex dynamics of family and servitude, and discusses the challenge of transcending inherited narratives. Buy Theft: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/theft-2*Abdulrazak Gurnah is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021. He is the author of ten novels: Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way, Dottie, Paradise (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award), Admiring Silence, By the Sea (longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), Desertion (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize) The Last Gift, Gravel Heart, and Afterlives, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2021 and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. He was Professor of English at the University of Kent, and was a Ma

For this bonus episode, the Shakespeare and Company podcast welcomes Jeremy Pelt, renowned jazz trumpeter and author of Griot: Examining the Lives of Jazz Great Storytellers. In conversation with Alex Freiman, Pelt discusses the evolution of jazz, the influence of oral traditions, and the importance of documenting firsthand accounts from legendary musicians. Reflecting on his early days at Berklee, his experiences touring worldwide, and his deep reverence for jazz elders like Roy Haynes and Wayne Shorter, Pelt shares insights into both the triumphs and struggles of jazz musicians. He also addresses the debate over the term “jazz,” the intersection of jazz and hip-hop, and the ongoing challenge of preserving the music’s integrity in an industry that often sidelines its true practitioners. Listen in for a compelling exploration of jazz history, culture, and the passion that fuels one of its modern torchbearers.*Jeremy Pelt has become one of the preeminent young trumpeters within the world of jazz. Forging a bon

In this episode, we’re joined by novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo to discuss her latest novel, Call Me Ishmaelle. A bold reimagining of Moby-Dick, Guo's novel audaciously swaps the gender of Melville’s narrator and plunges into a world of hidden identities, maritime adventure, and cultural collision.With host Adam Biles, Guo reflects on her personal and literary journey—from her early, abandoned encounters with Moby-Dick in Chinese to her deep dive into American whaling history and the Civil War. She shares insights on writing in a second language, the challenge of adapting a literary classic, and the influence of Taoism and Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle on her storytelling.Buy Call Me Ishmaelle: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/call-me-ishmaelle-2*Xiaolu Guo was born in China. She published six books before moving to Britain in 2002. Her books include: Village of Stone, shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Oran

In this thought-provoking discussion, poet and oral historian Sarah Hesketh discusses her latest book, 2016 (CB Editions), a powerful exploration of one of the most pivotal years in recent history. Through a poetic and documentary approach, she captures the voices of twelve individuals reflecting on key events that shaped the world—Brexit, Trump’s election, the Syrian refugee crisis, celebrity deaths, and the climate emergency.Hesketh discusses her unique oral history-meets-poetry methodology, weaving real voices into a literary tapestry that highlights how people experience history personally. She explains the ethical dilemmas of working with real testimonies, her structured yet fluid approach to editing interviews, and how historical narratives evolve over time.The conversation touches on:How the death of Hesketh’s father led her to explore grief, memory, and storytelling.The 2016 political landscape and the increasing polarization of public discourse.The challenges of finding diverse interviewees, includin

In this special live recording we dive into The Seers, the mesmerising new novel by Sulaiman Addonia. In conversation with Adam Biles, Addonia shares the story behind his bold, unfiltered novel—written as a single, unbroken paragraph—through the voice of Hannah, an Eritrean refugee navigating love, loss, sexuality, and identity on the streets of London. Three powerful readings by Liya Kebede, bringing Hannah’s world vividly to lifeThe Seers is a novel that defies definition—sensual, poetic, and politically charged. Addonia’s reflections on storytelling, migration, and the search for home will stay with you long after you listen.Buy The Seers: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/the-seers*Sulaiman Addonia is an Eritrean-Ethiopian-British novelist. He spent his early life in a refugee camp in Sudan, and his early teens in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He arrived in London as an underage unaccompanied refugee without a word of English and went on to earn an MA in Development Studies from SOAS and a BSc in Econom

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Amber Massie-Blomfield, author of Acts of Resistance: The Power of Art to Create a Better World. This conversation, recorded in store, dives into the profound role art plays in times of crisis. Amber shares stories of artists who defied oppressive regimes, like Claude Cahun's surrealist resistance in Nazi-occupied Jersey and Susan Sontag’s production of Waiting for Godot during the siege of Sarajevo. We explore how art inspires activism, questions societal norms, and fosters collective resilience. From daring theatrical productions to sunflower-lined streets, Amber reveals art’s transformative potential to unite and inspire. Whether you're an artist, activist, or curious thinker, this episode challenges the notion that art is “just” entertainment and posits it as a force for meaningful change.Buy Acts of Resistance: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/acts-of-resistance*Amber Massie-Blomfield’s first book, Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die, was pub

In this pivotal episode, Adam Biles speaks with French journalist and author Salomé Saqué about her urgent new book, Résister. Recorded two days after the death of French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and coinciding with Donald Trump’s second inauguration, this conversation delves into the global rise of far-right movements, their strategies, and the grave implications for democracy.Saqué discusses the normalisation of extremist politics in France, the erosion of democratic institutions, and the global connections among far-right leaders and billionaires. She highlights the dangers of misinformation, attacks on the judiciary, and the media’s complicity in enabling these movements. Drawing from historical patterns and international parallels, Saqué issues a powerful call to resist authoritarianism through informed action, dialogue, and collective effort.The episode concludes with practical advice for combating despair and taking meaningful steps in everyday life to safeguard democratic values—whether by s

For the second part of this year’s Bloomcast Holiday Special, Alice, Lex, and Adam get help from novelist Claire-Louise Bennett and Philosophy professor Foad Dizadji-Bahmani to explore how it challenges conventional ideas of narrative, language, and meaning. 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

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 wor

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 i

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

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://w

Why are we so obsessed with the apocalypse? Is it a reaction to the state of the world—climate catastrophe, regional wars threatening global conflict, pandemic scares, and the unsettling rise of AI—or does it run deeper? Is it inherent to the modern world or, perhaps, the human condition? And why are we so captivated by apocalyptic stories in books, films, TV shows, video games, and art—sometimes improbable, sometimes terrifyingly possible?Dorian Lynskey explores these questions in Everything Must Go. He starts in ancient times, with a detour through the Book of Revelation, before focusing on the 19th century, when humanity began to grasp that scientific advances could both transform and destroy the world. The 20th century brings the bomb, robots, and intelligent machines—the seeds of a potential end. Like the best non-fiction, Lynskey’s focus on a specific subject—armageddon—offers deeper insights into how we view ourselves, interact with others, and perceive our world.Buy Everything Must Go: https://www.sha

On the night of Friday, 13 November 2015, three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France during a football match between France and Germany, attended by President François Hollande. By 1am the next morning, 130 victims were dead, and 416 others were injured, many critically. Seven attackers were killed, and two more died in a shootout with police days later.In September 2021, nearly six years later, the trial of 20 men accused of involvement in the attacks began in a specially built courtroom near the Palais de Justice. Fourteen were present, six tried in absentia, and only one, Salah Abdeslam, had directly participated in the attacks. The others were involved in planning, logistics, or assisting the terrorists. With many defendants refusing to testify and the trial featuring mostly secondary figures, some doubted whether it would be meaningful. However, in V13, Emmanuel Carrère’s gripping account, it becomes clear that the trial was far from a failure. As he writes, it became "a unique

Denis Hirson’s My Thirty Minute Bar Mitzvah can be read as many different books. It can be read as a new, deeply personal, take on a pivotal episode in the history of South Africa. It can be read as a tender reflection on the mind of the author as he teetered on the cusp of adulthood. It can be read as a portrait of one particular wing of the Jewish diaspora, at one very particular moment in time. And it can be read as an account of how trauma is passed from one generation to the next, but also how with every new generation we are offered the opportunity of recovery…if only we will grasp it.My Thirty Minute Bar Mitzvah focuses primarily on the life of the author in the early 1960s, when he was between the age of nine and thirteen, and when the politics of his homeland was in turmoil after the brutal Sharpeville Massacre, carried out by the apartheid regime. Indeed, it’s these very politics that are going to impose themselves in a real and immediate fashion on the author’s world, not only shattering his idea o

In 2019, Anna, a psychoanalyst, is processing a recent miscarriage. Her husband, David, takes a job in London so she spends days obsessing over renovating the kitchen while befriending a younger woman called Clémentine who has moved into the building and is part of a radical feminist collective called les colleuses. Meanwhile, in 1972, Florence and Henry are redoing their kitchen. Florence is finishing her degree in psychology while hoping to get pregnant. But Henry isn’t sure he’s ready for fatherhood… Both sets of couples face the challenges of marriage, fidelity, and pregnancy. The characters and their ghosts bump into and weave around each other, not knowing that they once all inhabited the same space.A novel in the key of Éric Rohmer, Scaffolding is about the bonds we create with people, and the difficulty of ever fully severing them; about the ways that people we’ve known live on in us; and about the way that the homes we make hold communal memories of the people who’ve lived in them and the stories tha

Colombe Schneck’s THE PARIS TRILOGY is a book—or rather three books, first published separately in French—about growing up, about friendship, about love, about family, about class, about womanhood and the patriarchy…and about swimming. In short, about every side of a life, as it just happens to take place in Paris. Rendered in crisp, fluid English by translators Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer—who joins the conversation— THE PARIS TRILOGY begins with SEVENTEEN, a searingly frank account of the abortion the writer had as a teenager, passes through FRIENDSHIP, the devastating record of a childhood bond cut brutally short, and concludes with SWIMMING: A LOVE STORY, the chronicle of how this particular sport helped her build, and then grieve, a relationship.Buy The Paris Trilogy: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/the-paris-trilogy*Colombe Schneck is the author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, she has received prizes from the Académie Française, Madame Figaro and the Society of French Wri

A woman speaks to us from her room in a residential home, of some description. She reflects on her life, her family, her pets, on time—the past, present and the future—on Manson Family Alumnus Leslie Van Houyten, on History, on Death, on the Occult, on what it means to be “sensitive”…and so much more besides. All the while she is distracted, bothered, grounded, and charmed by her fellow residents, a rag-tag slice of American life if ever a novel saw oner. As you can imagine from a Lynne Tillman book—indeed, as you would hope—things get discursive, things get disrupted, things get WEIRD, very quickly. First published in 2006, AMERICAN GENIUS, A COMEDY achieves the eerie feat of growing more pertinent as time goes on. Deeply aware of the tradition of the novel—perhaps the American novel in particular—Tillman is also confident enough in the newness of her project, and mischievous enough in her approach, to subvert that tradition almost to breaking point. To echo the words of George Saunders, AMERICAN GENIUS, A C