Weird Era

Episode 125: Weird Era feat. Yann Martel


Listen Later

About Yann Martel:

YANN MARTEL is the author of Life of Pi, the global bestseller that won the 2002 Man Booker Prize and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.

About Son of Nobody:

Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.

In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody.

As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief.

In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live—then, now, and always.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Weird EraBy Weird Era

  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4

4.4

7 ratings


More shows like Weird Era

View all
This American Life by This American Life

This American Life

90,998 Listeners

Ask Penguin by Penguin Books UK

Ask Penguin

147 Listeners

Bookends with Mattea Roach by CBC

Bookends with Mattea Roach

247 Listeners

Otherppl with Brad Listi by Brad Listi

Otherppl with Brad Listi

533 Listeners

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Milkweed Editions

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

473 Listeners

On the Media by WNYC Studios

On the Media

9,229 Listeners

The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

10,736 Listeners

Death, Sex & Money by Slate Podcasts

Death, Sex & Money

7,712 Listeners

The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker by The New Yorker

The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker

2,123 Listeners

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso by Higher Ground

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

1,474 Listeners

Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel by Esther Perel Global Media

Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel

14,896 Listeners

City Arts & Lectures by City Arts & Lectures

City Arts & Lectures

395 Listeners

Culture Gabfest by Slate Podcasts

Culture Gabfest

444 Listeners

Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

653 Listeners

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud by Bella Freud

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

269 Listeners