BookBlast® Podcast

Bridging the Divide #5 | Interview : James Womack, translator

James Womack is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Spanish and Portuguese Section at Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam College. He reveals how he landed in Spain and translating Manuel Vilas’s latest collection of poetry and short fiction, Heaven, published this year by Carcanet Press. The author of fourteen collections of poetry, seven books of essays, and seven novels, Vilas’s novel Ordesa was a bestseller in Spain; is forthcoming in English with Canongate in November 2020. 
  
“Vilas is exceptionally skilled at capturing the misery and ecstasy that can coincide and enmesh in a single moment . . . Emotional depth and layers of meaning shine through Womack’s rhythmic translation and his use of extraordinary vocabulary . . . As in all great poetry, ordinary and unsuspecting moments are suddenly infused by a subliminal energy that transforms a mundane thought or event into a profound and valid realisation” . . . From the review by Rachel Goldblatt for The BookBlast Diary 

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such

Bridging the Divide #4 | Interview: Anne Meadows (Granta) Jamie Lee Searle (translator)

"Anna Kim’s The Great Homecoming is a sweeping tale of friendship and betrayal that explores the devastating impact of the Korean War, Russian and American politicking and the Cold War on individuals, families and cities in Korea and Japan during the 1950s and ’60s. It may be a historical novel, but it puts people – a people; an entire nation – at its heart. This slick and accomplished translation by Jamie Lee Searle is sure to widen Kim’s fanbase and acclaim, and rightly so." Rachel Goldblatt, The BookBlast Diary

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such | 37:49

Bridging the Divide #3 | Interview: Rose (Eland) Robyn Marsack (translator)

The Swiss writer and photographer, Nicolas Bouvier, (1929-98) was a traveller in the real sense of the word, navigating different worlds and writing about now forgotten communities. He gives us alternative perspectives on places like the Balkans, Iran, Azerbaijan, Japan, China, Korea and the highlands of Scotland.

The Way of the World, The Scorpion Fish and So It Goes have become cult reads. Hear his translator Robyn Marsack and publisher Rose from Eland Books discuss why Nicolas Bouvier such a special writer and what his writings reveal about the man and his journeys undertaken in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, what is good travel writing, and what makes it last?   

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such

Bridging the Divide #2 | Interview : Adam Freudenheim, Pushkin Press

Publishing classics requires a special acuity. What makes a classic?

Pushkin Press focuses on modern classics, mostly translated works. How did you discover your most successful no-longer-forgotten comeback author, Stefan Zweig?

What type of person do you think makes a very good translator?

Hear Adam Freudenheim, publisher & MD of Pushkin Press, answer these questions and give unexpected insights as he talks about his love of literature and publishing translations.

 

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such

Bridging the Divide #1 | Interview : J.S. Margot, author

J.S. Margot’s  memoir, Mazel Tov, "is the story of an extraordinary friendship – in fact several extraordinary friendships that marked the twenties of the author J.S.Margot. At first sight it is the story of a young Flemish woman at university in Antwerp who teaches the four children of an Orthodox Jewish family to earn a bit of extra money. It is also the story of her first great love for an Iranian political refugee. In both cases she is exposed to a culture and religion that is not her own. She also begins to realise that she is on the receiving end of a certain amount of paranoia and suspicion from both her employers and her boyfriend.” — Henrietta Foster, The BookBlast Diary

 

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such

The BookBlast® Podcast | LIVE interview: Michèle Roberts, Franco-British novelist

Michèle Roberts is the author of twelve highly-acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She has also published poetry and short stories, and is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. 

 

Topics: Born a twin. Growing up in Edgware outside London; summer holidays in Etretat, Normandy; Roman Catholic schooling and rebellion; becoming a writer and being published by The Womens Press and Virago culture and creative freedom in the 1970s and 1980s; feminism then and now; the influence of biculturalism; the shock of rejection, learning and rebuilding from it.

 

Title focus: Negative Capability: A Diary of Surviving, published 28 May 2020 – visit www.sandstonepress.com

 

Recorded by telephone on the eve of the Covid 19 Lockdown

 

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Produced by Rupert Such, Biscuittown Productions

The BookBlast® Podcast | LIVE interview: Narisa Chakrabongse, CEO, River Books

Narisa Chakrabongse, the founder and CEO of River Books, and the great granddaughter of King Rama V (Chulalongkorn) of Siam, is the editor of the Oxford River Books English-Thai Dictionary.

 

Chakrabongse Villas, the family home, is a small boutique hotel in Bangkok. I caught up with her some months ago when she was in town, to talk about her unusual Thai-Russian-British background, being a foreigner living in a strange land and, of course, River Books, which you can visit online at riverbooksbk.com

 

Presented by G de Chamberet | A BookBlast® Production

The BookBlast® Podcast | LIVE interview: Keith Anderson a.k.a. Bob Andy

Reggae legend, Keith Anderson, known as Bob Andy, talks about his life and times in a rare and exclusive interview.

 

Best known in the UK for the track recorded with Marcia Griffiths "Young, Gifted and Black" (1970), he is widely regarded as "one of reggae's most influential songwriters," Wikipedia. The conversation takes in his childhood in Kingston, Maxfield Park children's home, Kingston Parish Church choir and Tyrone Evans. The Paragons. Studio One.

 

His first solo hit record (1967) "I've Got to Go Back Home" was followed by "Desperate Lover", "Feeling Soul", "Unchained", and "Too Experienced". Composing songs for other reggae artists, including "I Don't Want to See You Cry" for Ken Boothe, and "Feel Like Jumping", "Truly", and "Melody Life" for Marcia Griffiths. He is best known for "Young, Gifted and Black" recorded with Marcia Griffiths in the early 1970s. Trojan. Working as a producer in London and recording with Mad Professor. Moving to Miami. Several of his hits in the late 1960s, and his 1992 hit, "Fire Burning", are regarded as reggae standards and have been covered several times by other artists.

 

Presented by G de Chamberet | A BookBlast® Production 

The BookBlast® Podcast | LIVE interview: Maggie Gee, author

Maggie Gee is the author of fifteen books, thirteen of which are novels, including her latest, Blood, which is published by Fentum Press.

She talks about being born to working-class parents and climbing into an uneasy place between classes; winning a major open scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford where she did an MA in English literature and an MLitt on Surrealism in England; breaking into the publishing game; being selected as of the original Granta 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1983; why there is still such reticence on the part of the dominant ‘white’ literary establishment to address, through literature, the tensions of race and class in contemporary British society; co-founding the “Empathy and Writing” cross-disciplinary research group at Bath Spa University; and more.

 

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | A BookBlast® Production

The BookBlast® Podcast (LIVE) | Playing Chinese Whispers with Nicky Harman

Nicky Harman, is a leading translator and promoter of Chinese literature. She was interviewed for The BookBlast® Diary in 2016 and Xu Xiaobin's Crystal Wedding reviewed.

 

Our conversation about writing from a non-English speaking world that is 4,834 miles away from the UK takes in the dark side of socialism and government censorship, what strengths are drawn by Chinese writers from the richness of their cultural background and national identity, issues faced by translators, Chinese women writers, sex and violence in contemporary Chinese literature, the unique aspects of contemporary Chinese literature, the growing popularity of science fiction and martial arts fiction in the West, and much more.

 

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | A BookBlast® Production | Recorded 14.02.2019