Can you have freedom without constraint? What role does it play in creativity, and can it be productive as well as limiting? This month our guest is the thinker and writer Maggie Nelson, whose latest book, On Freedom, explores the concept of freedom via four wide-ranging essays about art, sex, drugs and climate. Its subtitle is Four Songs of Care and Constraint, so we thought we’d make this month’s show about the boundaries that are often the counterpoint to freedom. Tune in for Maggie’s thoughts on – to borrow a phrase from Judith Butler – ‘working the trap’, our favourite books about constraint, plus all the usual recommendations.

Recommendations on the theme, Constraint:

Octavia: The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas, translated by Frank Wynne

Carrie: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

General Recommendations:

Octavia: Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden-Keefe

Maggie: My Brother by Jamaica Kinkaid

Carrie: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/october-2021-constraint-with-maggie-nelson

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This episode is sponsored by Picador: https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador