Listen to journalist Erica Wagner in conversation with Mai Sennaar, writer of “They Dream in Gold”, her first novel published by Picador and SJP Lit in 2024 which explores the notion of identity and the sense of belonging through two protagonists from the African diaspora in the United States. As the conversation unfolds, the author evokes how music changed her life and the emancipatory power of language. The writer, playwright and filmmaker also reflects on the transformative experience of being published, read and understood as her first novel has been shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. 

As part of the Rendez-vous littéraires rue Cambon [Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon], the podcast "les Rencontres" highlights the birth of a writer in a series created by CHANEL and House ambassador and spokesperson Charlotte Casiraghi. 

(00:00) : Introduction 

(00:56) : Presentation of Mai Sennaar and her novel “They Dream in Gold” by Erica Wagner

(04:21) : On the author’s path to becoming a writer

(06:34) : About cinema, theatre and literature

(08:57) : The start of writing her novel

(10:14) : On the influence of language on writing

(12:07) : The publication process of her novel

(14:27) : On Alfred Hitchcock’s influence on the novel

(16:17) : Reading an extract of “They Dream in Gold” by Mai Sennaar

(17:51) : On the writing process of her novel

(19:36) : The books which inspired her

(22:24) : On the influence of music in the novel

(24:49) : The research process behind the book

(27:25) : On speaking about black identity

(30:20) : On the reception of the book

(33:20) : The ending questionnaire of “les Rencontres”

They Dream In Gold © Mai Sennaar 2024. First published in the US in 2024 by SJP Lit, an imprint of Zando. First published in the UK in 2024 by Picador, an imprint of Macmillan

Jean Kwok, Book Review: 'They Dream in Gold,' by Mai Sennaar,

From the New-York Times © 2024 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license

Lucy Popescu, They Dream in Gold by Mai Sennaar review - love and identity on the 1960s music scene, 28 July 2024 © Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2025

Mai Sennaar © Wax Lovers Playlist, 2017

Diana Wharton Sennaar and Mai Sennaar © Carry On, 2024

Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story, 1957

David Dodge, To Catch a Thief, published 1952 by Alfred A. Knopf

Alfred Hitchcock, North by Northwest, © Warner Bros., 1959. All rights reserved

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Copyright © 1937 by Zora Neale Hurston. Renewed © 1965 by John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston. Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers