Human Conditions

Brent Hayes Edwards talks to Adam about Aimé Césaire's 1950 essay Discourse on Colonialism, a groundbreaking work of 20th-century anti-colonial thought and a precursor to the writings of Césaire's protégé, Frantz Fanon. Césaire was Martinique’s most influential poet and one of its most prominent politicians as a deputy in the French National Assembly, and his Discourse is addressed directly at his country’s colonisers. Adam and Brent consider Césaire’s poetry alongside his political arguments and the particular characteristics of his version of négritude, the far-reaching movement of black consciousness he founded with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Damas.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Subscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading and listening:Musab Yunis: Against Independencehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n13/musab-younis/against-independenceBrent Hayes Edwards: Inside the Barrelhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n17/brent-hayes-edwards/inside-the-barrelJohn Berger & David Constantine: Aimé Césaire’s Return to My Native Landhttps://lrb.me/bergercesaireBrent Hayes Edwards is a scholar of African American and Francophone literature and of jazz studies at Columbia University.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Brent Hayes Edwards and Adam discuss the ‘ur-text of Black political philosophy’, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Spanning autobiography, history, biography, fiction, music criticism and political science, its fourteen essays set the tone for Black literature, political debate and scholarly production for the course of the 20th century. Souls was an immediate bestseller, the subject of furious debate and a foundational work in the new field of sociology.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Subscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Adam Lively: Fisticuffshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n05/adam-lively/fisticuffsKevin Okoth: Resistance from Elsewherehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n07/kevin-okoth/resistance-from-elsewhereLewis Nkosi: An UnAmerican in New Yorkhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n16/lewis-nkosi/an-unamerican-in-new-yorkBrent Hayes Edwards is a scholar of African American and Francophone literature and of jazz studies at Columbia University.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

After reciting an unflattering poem about Stalin to a small group of friends, Osip Mandelstam was betrayed to the police and endured five years in exile before dying in transit to the gulag. His wife, Nadezhda, spent the rest of her life dodging arrest, advocating for Osip’s work and writing what came to be known as Hope against Hope.Hope against Hope is a testimony of life under Stalin, and of the ways in which ordinary people challenge and capitulate to power. It’s also a compendium of gossip, an account of psychological torture, a description of the poet’s craft and a love story.Pankaj Mishra joins Adam to discuss his final selection for Human Conditions. They explore the qualities that make Hope against Hope so compelling: Nadezhda Mandelstam’s uncompromising honesty, perceptiveness and irrepressible humour.Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Seamus Heaney: Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstamhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n15/seamus-heaney/osip-and-nadezhda-mandelstamClarence Brown: Every Slightest Pebblehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n10/clarence-brown/every-slightest-pebbleFrances Stonor Saunders: The Writer and the Valethttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n18/frances-stonor-saunders/the-writer-and-the-valetPankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz to discuss The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing’s formally brilliant and startlingly frank 1962 novel. In her portrait of ‘free women’ – unmarried, creatively ambitious, politically engaged – Lessing wrestles with the breakdown of Stalinism, settler colonialism and traditional gender roles. Pankaj and Adam explore the lived experiences that shaped the novel, its feminist reception and why Pankaj considers it to be one of the best representations of ‘the strange uncapturable sensation of living from day to day.’Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading:Anita Brookner: Women Against Menhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v04/n16/anita-brookner/women-against-menFrank Kermode: The Daughter Who Hated Herhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n14/frank-kermode/the-daughter-who-hated-herJenny Diski: Why can‘t people just be sensible?https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n15/jenny-diski/why-can-t-people-just-be-sensiblePankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy is a study of the psychological toll of colonialism on both the coloniser and colonised, showing how Western conceptions of masculinity and adulthood served as tools of conquest. Using figures as disparate as Gandhi, Oscar Wilde and Aurobindo Ghosh, Nandy suggests ways in which alternative models of age and gender can provide compelling challenges to colonial authority. Pankaj Mishra joins Adam to unpack Nandy’s subtle and unexpected lines of thought and to explain why The Intimate Enemy remains as innovative today as it did in 1983.Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Ashis Nandy: The Last Englishman to Rule Indiahttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n10/ashis-nandy/the-last-englishman-to-rule-indiaAmit Chaudhuri: India before Kiplinghttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n01/amit-chaudhuri/a-feather!-a-very-feather-upon-the-face

In A House for Mr Biswas, his 1961 comic masterpiece, V.S. Naipaul pays tribute to his father and the vanishing world of his Trinidadian youth. Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz in their first of four episodes to discuss the novel, a pathbreaking work of postcolonial literature and a particularly powerful influence on Pankaj himself. They explore Naipaul’s fraught relationship to modernity, and the tensions between his attachment to individual freedom and his insistence on the constraints imposed by history. Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsRead more in the LRB:D.A.N. Jones: The Enchantment of Vidia Naipaulhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n08/d.a.n.-jones/the-enchantment-of-vidia-naipaulFrank Kermode: What Naipaul Knowshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/frank-kermode/what-naipaul-knowsPaul Theroux: Out of Sir Vidia’s Shadowhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/paul-theroux/diarySanjay Subramahnyam: Where does he come from? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n21/sanjay-subrahmanyam/where-does-he-come-fromPankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk