SAL/on air

Madeleine Albright was America's first-ever female Secretary of State, from 1997 to 2001. Her distinguished career of public service includes positions in the National Security Council, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and on Capitol Hill. In her latest book, Fascism: A Warning, Albright gives us an urgent examination of fascism in the 20th century and how its legacy shapes today’s world. A fascist, observes Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.”

In this episode, we hear from Albright, who sat down in April 2018 at the Paramount Theatre to discuss Fascism: A Warning with Mark Suzman, Chief Strategy Officer and President in Global Policy and Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Albright draws upon both her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to demonstrate how fascism not only endured through the twentieth century, but how it now presents a more virulent threat to peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II.

In our latest episode of SAL/on air, we hear from one of the pre-eminent authors of the 20th century—Philip Roth. He joined us back in October 1992 for a reading from his National Book Award-winning memoir, Patrimony: A True Story. Written with great intimacy at the height of his literary powers, Patrimony is Roth’s elegy to his father, who he accompanies, full of love and dread, through each stage of terminal brain cancer.

As he does so, Roth wrestles with the stubborn, survivalist drive that distinguished Herman Roth’s engagement with life, and his own anxieties around remembering the man with precision. “You mustn’t forget anything – that’s the inscription on [my father’s] coat of arms,” Roth writes. “To be alive, to him, is to be made of memory.” At the conclusion of Roth’s reading, he takes questions from the audience.

Sadly, Roth passed away in May 2018 at the age of eighty-five, after a long and vital career of investigating what it meant for him to be an American, a Jew, a writer, and a man, through many different masks. He once said: “Updike and Bellow hold their flashlights out into the world, reveal the world as it is now. I dig a hole and shine my flashlight into the hole.”

This episode is Part Two of our double-feature with legendary Chilean writer Isabel Allende, who joined us for the second time for Seattle Arts & Lectures’ 2017/18 Season. On November 28, SAL had the pleasure of welcoming Allende back to our Literary Arts Series after her last visit thirty years ago, which we shared in our previous episode.

SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey was in conversation with Allende that night, who shared with us how she came to write her newest book, In the Midst of Winter, as well as her thoughts on love, loss, and healing. From the transformative potential of women in power, to the healing work of truth-telling, to advice for eternal youth, her warm talk reveals Allende to be not only a candid comic genius and a passionate storyteller, but ultimately, an ambassador of joy.

One of the world's most widely-read Spanish language authors, Chilean writer Isabel Allende is a master of the magical realism form and a colorful storyteller. At the time of Allende's first visit to the SAL stage, she had authored her astonishing debut, "The House of the Spirits," "Of Love and Shadows," and "Eva Luna."

This episode is Part One of our double-feature with Allende, who first joined us in March 1989 for Seattle Arts & Lectures’ inaugural season. In her talk, she describes surrendering to the power of writing, and its potential to unify what she calls the “extended family” of the world. Allende is introduced by Seattle Arts & Lectures’ visionary founder, Sherry Prowda.

Stay tuned for Part Two of this double-feature, when Allende returns to the SAL stage in November 2017 for an update on her storied career.

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest, whose award-winning novels have been described as "witty, intelligent and passionate" by the Independent, and as possessing "shrewd and playful humor, luscious sexiness and kinetic pizzazz" by the Chicago Tribune. At the time of her visit, Ozeki had written three novels, most recently A Tale for Time-Being (2013), shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

In this episode, we hear from Ozeki, who joined us in November 2014 at Seattle Town Hall for a self-reflective, humorous talk about the writer’s relationship with time, and the ways in which we can learn to cultivate patience and find time to become better writers and better human beings. How did Ozeki’s time in a “neo-Luddite enclave” help her redefine her relationship with technology and birth her most successful novel? How do ideas from the 13th century priest, Dogen Zenji, remain relevant in our lives today? Listen and find out why Ozeki believes that “practicing patience is the most deeply subversive thing you can do.”

Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge, the bestsellers Abide With Me, The Burgess Boys, My Name is Lucy Barton, and the award-winning Amy and Isabelle, all set in New England, all exploring the twists and turns of family dynamics, small-town gossip, and experiences of love, loss, and grief. “The pleasure in reading Strout," writes Louisa Thomas for the New York Times, "comes from an intense identification with complicated, not always admirable, characters. [...] There’s nothing mawkish or cheap here. There’s simply the honest recognition that we need to try to understand people, even if we can’t stand them.”

In this episode, we hear from Strout, who joined us in January 2011 at Benaroya Hall for a talk on why fiction matters, followed by an interview with Linda Bowers, then-Executive Director of Seattle Arts & Lectures. Strout's appearance begins with the tale of an ire-inducing comment at a wedding reception, then traces how, through reading John Updike’s Rabbit books and understanding the despicable Harry Angstrom, she learned to be a more compassionate person. With her signature dry New England wit, Strout shares stories from her puritanical childhood, her battle with writer's block, and her belief that reading fiction is the one guaranteed way to “find out what it means to be human.”