The Minor Books Podcast

Raph and Nikhil talk to novelist and critic Anjum Hasan about Anita Desai's In Custody (1984) and Dag Solstad's Shyness and Dignity (1994, tr. Sverre Lyngstad 2006).

Nikhil and Raph are joined by writer and translator Arshia Sattar to discuss Magda Szabo's The Door (1987, tr. Len Rix 2005) and Margaret Forster's Lady's Maid (1990).

Raph and Nikhil are joined by Richard Foster, teacher and museum curator at Winchester College, to talk about Hisham Matar's A Month in Siena (2019) and T. J. Clark's The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing (2006).

Nikhil and Raph are joined by Peter Cherry, author of Muslim Masculinities in Literature and Film: Transcultural Identity and Migration in Britain and Assistant Director of the British Institute at Ankara, to discuss Yusuf Atılgan's Motherland Hotel (tr. Fred Stark, 1973/2017) and Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac (1984).

Raph and Nikhil are joined by Oliver Soden, author of Masquerade: The Lives of Noël Coward, to discuss two novels about spiritualist mediums: Muriel Spark's The Bachelors and R. K. Narayan's The English Teacher.

Nikhil and Raph discuss Amos Tutuola's 1952 novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard and Angela Carter's 1979 collection of dark fairy tales, The Bloody Chamber.

Raph and Nikhil welcome guest Minoo Dinshaw, author of Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman, to talk about Javier Marías's All Souls and Javier Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis.

Nikhil and Raph discuss two experimental biographies of minor writers: A. J. A. Symons's The Quest for Corvo and Iman Mersal's Traces of Inayat.

Raph and Nikhil are joined by Rey Conquer, author of Reading Colour: George, Rilke, Kandinsky, Lasker-Schüler, to talk about Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond and Ella Maillart's The Cruel Way.