In this episode we are listening to writer and translator Kate Briggs and poet, writer and scholar Holly Pester discuss Hélène Bessette’s Lili Is Crying, which has been translated by Kate and published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Hélène Bessette (1918–2000) published thirteen novels with Gallimard between 1953 and 1973, won the Cazes prize in 1954 and was twice in the running for the Goncourt prize and the Médicis prize.

Kate Briggs grew up in Somerset, UK, and lives and works in Rotterdam, NL, where she founded and co-runs the writing and publishing project ‘Short Pieces That Move’. She is the  translator of two volumes of Roland Barthes’s lecture and seminar notes at the Collège de France: The Preparation of the Novel and How to Live Together, both published by Columbia University Press. This Little Art, her genre-bending essay on the art of translation, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2017. In 2021, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize. Her debut novel, The Long Form, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2023 and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize the same year.

Libreria wishes to thank Fitzcarraldo Editions who helped create this event at Libreria.

Books mentioned in the episode:

Lily Is Crying by Hélène Bessette, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions

This Little Art by Kate Briggs, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions

Fair: The Life-Art of Translation by Jen Calleja, published by Prototype

In this episode we are listening to acclaimed writers Adam Weymouth and Jay Griffiths  discuss their new books, Lone Wolf and How Animals Heal Us. which was recorded live in the bookshop. 

From Adam Weymouth, the winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, comes Lone Wolf, an epic walk across the Alps in the footsteps of a wolf, throwing unique light on Europe's mountainous hinterlands at a moment of political and environmental change.

In 2011, a young wolf named Slavc set out from Slovenia. Tracked by GPS, he travelled a thousand miles through the Alps, arriving four months later on the Lessinian plateau, north of Verona. There had been no wolves in northern Italy for a century, but here he crossed paths with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves back in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting.  In Lone Wolf, Weymouth walks Slavc's path, examining the changes facing these wild corners of Europe. Here, the call to rewild meets the urge to preserve culture; nationalism and globalisation pull apart; climate change is radically changing lives; and migrants, too, are on the move. The result is a multifaceted account of a region caught in a

moment of kaleidoscopic flux, from an award-winning writer with a uniquely perceptive eye for detail.

From celebrated author Jay Griffiths comes a unique and heartfelt insight into the healing nature of our relationship with animals. Pet-owners and animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This book offers evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries, history, and Indigenous knowledge.

In this original, revelatory and exuberant book, Jay Griffiths draws widely on scientific discoveries, history, and Indigenous knowledge to explore how animals can have a role in every level of healing, from the individual to the collective, guiding us in how we might create societies that are healthier, fairer and kinder. Wolves may be teachers of ethics; monkeys and dogs can object to unfairness and bees take collective decisions. Animals are irresistible medicine for a healthy culture, animating the arts with spectacular vitality and verve, as poetry knows.

Libreria wishes to thank Hutchinson Heinemann and Hamish Hamilton of Penguin Books who helped bring this event together at Libreria.

In this episode we are listening to critically acclaimed writer Yoko Tawada and interdisciplinary artist Tice Cin discuss Yoko’s novel Spontaneous Acts. which was recorded live in the bookshop. 

In Spontaneous Acts, Patrik is a literary researcher living in Berlin, a city just coming back to life after lockdown. Though his beloved opera houses are open again, Patrik cannot leave the house and hardly manages to get out of bed.

He is supposed to give a paper at a conference in Paris, on the poetry collection Threadsuns by Paul Celan, but he can’t get past the first question on the registration form: ‘What is your nationality?’ As Patrik attempts to find a connection in a world that constantly overwhelms him, he meets a mysterious stranger. The man’s name is Leo-Eric Fu, and somehow he already knows Patrik.

Yoko Tawada’s mesmerising novel unfolds like a lucid dream in which the solace of friendship, reading, conversation, music – of seeing and being seen – is examined and celebrated. Spontaneous Acts reaches out to all of us who find meaning and even obsession in the words of those before us.

Libreria wishes to thank Dialogue Books and the Japan Foundation, who kindly supported Yoko’s visit to the UK in 2024.

In this episode we are listening to Rumaan Alam and Lloyd Sowerbutts discuss Rumaan’s recent novel Entitlement, which was recorded in October 2024, at Bloomsbury Publishing’s Headquarters in Central London.

The discussion touches on money, the role of the state, the value attributed to commodities, canonical authors, and being outwitted by the intentions of a novel.

Rumaan Alam is the author of four novels: Leave the World Behind, That Kind of Mother, Rich and Pretty, and Entitlement. He also hosts two podcasts for Slate.  Leave the World Behind was acclaimed by book critics and nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. It was later adapted as a 2023 film for Netflix with the same name.

Libreria wishes to thank Bloomsbury Publishing for the opportunity to host this discussion.

In this episode we welcome Aamna Mohdin to discuss her memoir, Scattered: The Making and Unmaking of a Refugee.

Aamna is the Guardian’s first community affairs correspondent, reporting on the social, political and economic experiences of the UK’s diverse communities, with a focus on Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Aamna spent her early years in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, Saudi Arabia, Germany and the Netherlands, before arriving in the UK aged seven.

Aamna is the winner of the British Journalism Award 2022 and her journalism has been shortlisted for the British Press Awards.

Libreria wishes to thank Bloomsbury Publishing for the opportunity to host this interview for The Libreria Podcast.

In this episode we are listening to South London writer and storyteller Aniefiok Ekpoudom and bestselling writer, photographer and filmmaker Caleb Azumah Nelson, as they discuss ⁠the music and modern social history detailed in Neef's outstanding book; Where We Come From: Rap, Home & Hope in Modern Britain, published by Faber in 2024.

Libreria wishes to thank Aniefiok, Caleb and Faber for the opportunity to host this live discussion at the bookshop, in April 2024.

In this episode we are listening to renowned poet, activist and icon Nikki Giovanni, who visited Libreria for an intimate night of readings and discussion with a small audience. In this first of two episodes, we are listening to the live readings of: Ego Tripping (from Re: Creation, 1970), Still Life with Apron (from Chasing Utopia, 2013) & Vegetable Soup (from Make Me Rain, 2020).

We will follow this with the full recording of the special night Libreria was honoured to host, which was a celebration of a major new career-spanning selection of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry from 1968 to 2020, published by Penguin Classics. 

This is a comprehensive selection of her most important poetic works across 50 years and 15 collections, carefully curated by her long-term partner, writer and professor Virginia Fowler.

Libreria wishes to thank Nikki Giovanni and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to host this evening of intimate conversation and readings at the bookshop.

In this episode we are listening to renowned poet, activist and icon Nikki Giovanni, who visited Libreria for an intimate night of readings and discussion with a small audience. In this second of two episodes, we are listening to Nikki share her thoughts and feelings about the world, her fascination with space travel, a love of jazz, food and Black women, and some laugh-out-loud anecdotes.

This special night, which Libreria was honoured to host, was a celebration of a major new career-spanning selection of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry from 1968 to 2020, published by Penguin Classics. 

This is a comprehensive selection of her most important poetic works across 50 years and 15 collections, carefully curated by her long-term partner, writer and professor Virginia Fowler.

Libreria wishes to thank Nikki Giovanni and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to host this evening of intimate conversation and readings at the bookshop.

In this episode we are listening to Ros Taylor discuss her book The Future of Trust, recently published by Melville House, as part of their FUTURES series. 

We touch on the ideas of interpersonal and institutional trust, when events and public figures continue to undermine and erode them, but it’s not a doom-laden chat! 

Libreria wishes to thank Ros Taylor and Melville House for the opportunity to host this discussion.

In this episode we welcome Colum McCann, the National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin, and the Booker Prize-nominated Apeirogon, to discuss his first non-fiction book, American Mother. which tells the story of Diane Foley – mother of beheaded journalist James Foley – who has come face-to-face with her son’s killer and continues to campaign for the safety of journalists and revised government hostage policy.   

Colum McCann’s seven novels and three collections of short stories have been published in over forty languages and received some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards and honours.

Libreria wishes to thank Bloomsbury publishing and Colum McCann for the opportunity to record this conversation at Bloomsbury’s headquarters in London.