KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Nancy MacLean, author of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean, in researching the life of libertarian professor James Buchanan, discovered the philosophical underpinnings of what Hillary Clinton (almost unknowingly) called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Funded by Charles Koch and other donors, they’ve taken over the GOP and have an agenda, she says, that ultimately will allow minority rule in the United States for the forseeable future.

In this interview, she discusses the role of Buchanan and the Mont Pelerin Society in the underpinnings of this gradual take-over of the state and federal government, and what the goals are, according to her research. “Democracy in Chains” is on the short list for the 2017 National Book Award.

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Adam Gopnik, whose latest book is “At The Strangers’ Gate” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Adam Gopnik has been a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine for over three decades. Among his best-selling books are “Paris to the Moon,” “At the Children’s Gate,” and “The Table Comes First.” He is currently  the author of the magazine’s “Daily Comment” blog, and has written on several subjects, from politics to food to gun control. He is the winner of three National Magazine awards and has worked extensively in theater.

His latest book, “At The Strangers’ Gate” deals with his arrival in New York in the early 1980s, and focuses on changes in life and culture over the course of that decade. In this interview, he discusses his recent book, as well as his work for the New Yorker, his lecture series, and other projects.

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Susan Vreeland, who died on August 23, 2017 at the age of 71, was the best-selling author of several novels, most of them concerning the field of painting — beginning with her second book, “Girl in Hyacinth Blue”, which focused on a work of the Dutch artist Vermeer. A high school English teacher for many years, she was past forty when she published her first novel, “What Love Sees”. After the Vermeer book in 1999, she went on to write six more works of fiction over the course of the next fifteen years.

Richard Wolinsky interviewed Susan Vreeland on January 24, 2002, when she was on tour for her third novel, “The Passion of Artemisia,” about the female baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

Susan Vreeland’s later books included “The Forest Lover,” about the Canadian painter Emily Carr, and e linked short story collection focusing on the French impressionists, “Life Studies.”  Her final novel, ‘Lisette’s List,’ was published in 2014. Set in the south of France during world war II, it features as characters Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. “Girl in Hyacinth Blue” became a made for television film, “Brush with Paint” starring Ellen Burstyn and Glenn Close.

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Elizabeth Rosner, author of Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Elizabeth Rosner, the author of three novels and one poetry/prose collection, discusses her latest book, Survivor Cafe, which deals with trauma and its effects, both direct and indirect. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she examines the effects of war and other tragedies on the psyche, and how those effects can be passed down, generation to generation.

In this interview, she talks not only about the Holocaust, but the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda, and the legacy of the American Civil War.

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Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded April 1, 2015 at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California, while he was on tour for his latest novel, “The Buried Giant.”

Over the past two decades, Kazuo Ishiguro has come to be regarded as one of the titans of modern literature. Author of such novels as “Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go,” he was born in Japan but grew up in Britain, and his sensibility as an author lies somewhere between the two cultures. On winning the Nobel, he said,

“It’s a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I’m in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that’s a terrific commendation. The world is in a very uncertain moment and I would hope all the Nobel Prizes would be a force for something positive in the world as it is at the moment. I’ll be deeply moved if I could in some way be part of some sort of climate this year in contributing to some sort of positive atmosphere at a very uncertain time.”

While the tour was for “The Buried Giant,” in this interview Ish also discusses “Never Let Me Go” and his notions of character, plot and relationship in his works.

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