English writer Sarah Bakewell is the author of engaging, accessible books about thinkers, from existentialists such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre to the 16th century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne – a work which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In her new book, Humanly Possible, Bakewell examines the centuries-long tradition of humanist thinking through the ideas and observations of a range of figures from Boccaccio and Erasmus to E.M. Forster and Zora Neale Hurston.

Sarah Bakewell on the enduring influence of humanist thought – from the Renaissance to today

CBC Radio's Writers and Company offers an opportunity to explore in depth the lives, thoughts and works of remarkable writers from around the world. Hosted by Eleanor Wachtel.

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Books

The British born author moved to New York in 2008 to write a book set in sixteenth-century India. But he was drawn to write about America, focusing on life in the city and the Mojave Desert in his two novels White Tears and Gods Without Men. Hari Kunzru spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2017 from New York

Hari Kunzru on race, politics and the blues

Jackie Kay’s adoption as a baby, and investigation into her birth parents — a Nigerian father and Scottish mother — give her an original take on Scotland and cultural identity. Jackie Kay talked about her uncomfortable discoveries upon meeting her birth parents, as well as her two books, Wish I Was Here and Darling: New and Selected Poems, when she met with Eleanor Wachtel at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh in 2007.

How using her imagination saved Scottish author Jackie Kay

In 2004, just before she won the Scotiabank Giller Prize (for the second time) for her story collection, Runaway, Alice Munro met Eleanor Wachtel at a restaurant near the author's home to discuss her new book, her interest in writing about infidelity and sex and her life growing up in Wingham, Ontario. The acclaimed Canadian short story writer, and Canada's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, died on May 13, 2024.

Alice Munro on writing about life, love, sex and secrets

Paul Auster spoke with Eleanor Wachtel about his novel Oracle Night, the ways in which reality and fiction blend and how coincidences shape our lives at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal in 2004. The writer of The New York Trilogy, Leviathan and 4 3 2 1, among many other books, was best known for his postmodernist fiction and meta-narratives. He died on April 30, 2024. He was 77. 

Chance, fate and fiction: looking back at American novelist and filmmaker Paul Auster

From his childhood in San Francisco's sand dunes to sitting in French cafes with Philip Glass and Samuel Beckett, Richard Serra reflects on his life and work during a 2011 conversation with Eleanor Wachtel. Best known for his evocative and monumental steel structures, you can find Serra's sculptural works all over the world, including his piece Titled Spheres in Toronto Pearson Airport. Serra died in March. He was 85.

Sarah Bakewell on the enduring influence of humanist thought – from the Renaissance to today

Download our free app to listen on your phone