Rippling Pages: Interviews with Writers

Vincenzo Latronico on Perfection, Authenticity, and Things

“Love is a dangerous topic.”

Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes.

Vincenzo is one of the most distinguished novelists writing in Italian today. He has also translated many books into Italian, by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hanif Kureishi.

In PERFECTION, there’s something missing from Anna and Tom’s life, and they can’t quite put their finger on what it is that is missing. It drives them to impatience and to the point of leaving their apartment in Berlin. But is it merely an itch they cannot scratch, or does it relate to a deeper lack of authenticity that strikes their core?

You can buy PERFECTION from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod

Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!

Rippling Points 

2.18 - Desirability and Familiarity 
4.27 - Driving the characters to dissatisfaction 
7.05 - Does Vincenzo want us to ‘care’ about the characters?
10.20 - Any city or Berlin
12.50 - The loss of authenticity 
16.20 - Are Anna and Tom in love?
21.30 - Is there another side to Berlin?
23.45 - The migrant crisis and activism 
29.15 - On being translated into English

 

Reference Points

Hand Magnus Enzensberger 
Michel Houellebecq 
George Perec

Rippling Points - Bonus Content with Pola Oloixarac - Archives, Horoscopes, and Twisted Desire

“They had one objective - to get rid of certain men”

Welcome to the first edition of Rippling Points - bonus content from last month’s episode!

A little bit more insight and a little bit more inspiration into the craft of writing!

Here, you can hear Pola talking about her delve into the archives to learn more about Argentina in 1970s. 

You’ll then hear Pola talking about her next project, Bad Hombre - which features real life accounts collected from Pola of women who were wanting to ‘ruin men’s lives’.

 

Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, was here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey and Adam Morris). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail. She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novelists as well as this and has written for a wide range of publications and is an Eccles Centre Fellow

SAVAGE THEORIES is a metaphysical, intertextual journey set in 1970s Buenos Aires. Rosa Ostreech struggles with her thesis on violence and culture and sleeps with a bourgeois former guerrilla while trying to kidnap her elderly professor. MONA is a satirical novel set within a global literary prize-giving event. It’s about the fetishisation of characteristics and the global market place of writers. 

Buy Savage Theories here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-theories-pola-oloixarac/2102898?aid=15004&ean=9781800818187

Buy Mona Here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/mona-pola-oloixarac/6331115?aid=15004&ean=9781788169899

Pola Oloixarac and Unreliability, Energies, and Dopamine

“I think it’s much more interesting to explore women through their powers.”

Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, is here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail. She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novelists as well as this and has written for a wide range of publications and an Eccles Centre Fellow

 

SAVAGE THEORIES is a metaphysical, intertextual journey set in 1970s Buenos Aires. Rosa Ostreech struggles with her thesis on violence and culture and sleeps with a bourgeois former guerrilla while trying to kidnap her elderly professor. MONA is a satirical novel set within a global literary prize-giving event. It’s about the fetishisation of characteristics and the global market place of writers. 

Buy Savage Theories here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-theories-pola-oloixarac/2102898?aid=15004&ean=9781800818187

Buy Mona Here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/mona-pola-oloixarac/6331115?aid=15004&ean=9781788169899

There’s also a festive treat for you in this episode. In the break, hear a reading from A POEM FOR EVERYDAY OF CHRISTMAS edited by Allie Esiri (MacMillan). I read Lemn Sissay’s ‘Let There Be Peace’.

Buy it here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-poem-for-every-day-of-christmas-allie-esiri/7738901?aid=15004&ean=9781035068388&

 

Reference Points

Thomas Bernhard

Robert Bolano

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Dark Constellations - Soho Press

Iris Mwanza - Zambia, Human Rights, and Elections

"I think it's a story few people have told before. And it's really about, what does a defender of human rights look like?"

Iris Mwanza is here to talk about her novel, THE LION'S DEN (Canongate Books). Iris's novel is about a human rights lawyer, Grace Zulu, whose client Willbess ‘Bessy’ Mulenga, has been arrested for offences ‘against nature. It launches Grace, and Iris, into the underbelly of the legal system.

Iris is deputy director of the Gender Equality Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she leads strategy and investment for the Women in Leadership portfolio, and she has previously worked as a corporate lawyer in both Zambia and the US.

Rippling Points

01.35 - Recording on the morning of the American election
02.41 - Who are the main characters
05.45 - Public institutions, the global south and colonialism
08.59 - When Iris saw the system for what it was
11.17 - ‘True believers’ who inspired this novel
13.41 - Why Grace is the way she is
16.09 - Grace's clashes write father Sebastian
21.27 - Guilt
26.10 - The tragedy of Bessy’s case
28.01 - Challenges promoting the book in Zambia
30.23 - Writing the court room

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Friða Ísberg and THE MARK

“The book is me trying to have a conversation with my father and reach a middle ground.”

 

Friða Ísberg is here to talk about THE MARK (Faber and Faber) translated by Larissa Kyzer. The book centres on a referendum in Iceland about whether mandatory tests should be imposed on its citizens. Friða talks about writing over the divide, arguments with her father, and Icelandic literary culture and how they have all shaped the book. 

Rippling Points

02:05 - what is the mark?

04:12 - where are the divides?

06:30 - working in London while Brexit happened

08:07 - Frida's relationship with her dad and how it informed The Mark

11.15 - feeding emotion into a novel

13:46 - is it easier to write characters we agree with?

18:31 - Icelandic meaning of The Mark and how it relates to divides.

21:25 - why an empathy test?

25.51 - who is profiting from the mark?

28:30 - is one in ten a published writer in Iceland?

31:22 - do writers have a public duty?

Reference Points

Writers

Fernanda Melchor
Jacqueline Rose
George Saunders
Ali Smith

Films

There's Something About Mary (1998, dir: Peter and Bobby Farrelly)

 

 

Naomi Wood and THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS

“Some people have been, oh these women are so grotesque. I don’t think they are! They’re quite relatable.”

 

Naomi Wood joins me to discuss THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS (Published by Orion)

It’s a collection that features the BBC Short Story Prize winner, Comorbidities. We talk about different kinds of intimacy in the stories, and how or why Naomi often writes about mothers in the . Naomi also talks about the craft and how she clashed registers to dazzling effect.

Naomi Wood is the bestselling author of The Godless Boys, Mrs. Hemingway and The Hiding Game. As a novelist, her books have won a Jerwood Award, the British Library Hay Festival Prize, and been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Historical Writers Golden Crown. Mrs. Hemingway was a Richard and Judy Bookclub pick in 2014 and a Chanel Bookclub pick in 2023.

 

for details about Naomi’s short fiction course, visit www.naomiwood.com

Rippling Points

1.45- comorbidities and winning the bbc short story prize award 

5.34 - pie charts’

8.17 - on writing about mothers

10.29 - transgressive actions in characters

12.07 - complicated or bad? 

15.48 - what’s a register clash?

18.54 - are they healing?

23,20 - influence of the pandemic and previous novels 

27.30 - what do we do with old me?

29.04 - what’s next for Naomi?

 

Reference Points

Rachel Cusk

Yan Ge

Ernest Hemingway 

 

Elizabeth Morris’ Crib Notes: https://cribnotesbookclub.substack.com