When we create a TTBOOK show, we often have echoes on a theme – reverberations and variations of thought or voice from guests we interview. In this week’s show, "Writing As a Political Act," the echoes are in personal experience with discrimination and violence, reflections on the history of war and political struggle, and in spite of it all, a spirit of going on, no matter how tough it gets. Two of the guests invoke the name of German writer Bertolt Brecht, whose 1939 play “Mother Courage and Her Children” was written as a reaction to World War II and the rise of Nazism and Fascism.
You’ll hear from Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, British writer Bernardine Evaristo, who was the first Black woman to win the Booker prize, and Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie. And, Anne and Steve will take you on a visit to Rudyard Kipling’s home in Vermont, where literary critic Christopher Benfey discusses why reading Kipling today is complicated.
It’s hard to say what was the first political novel, but writings from the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to modern day classics like Margaret Atwood’s "The Handmaid’s Tale" try to make sense of historical and political times through prose. As we currently live through political divisiveness and a war in Europe, and at the same time, are seeing a rise on books being banned for politics that go in and out of favor, we hope this show gives you something to think about at the intersection of literature and politics.
–Shannon