The Verso Podcast

The Storyteller: Tales out of Loneliness gathers for the first time the fiction of Walter Benjamin, edited and translated by Sam Dolbear, Esther Leslie and Sebastian Truskolaski. His stories revel in the erotic tensions of city life, cross the threshold of dreamworlds, celebrate the ludic, and delve into fortune-telling. Taken together, the novellas, fables, histories, aphorisms, parables and riddles in this collection illuminate the themes that defined Benjamin’s work.

In the latest Verso podcast in collaboration with the London Review Bookshop, Esther Leslie, Marina Warner and Michael Rosen join Gareth Evans to discuss his experimentation with form and the themes that run throughout Benjamin’s creative and critical writing, his concepts of storytelling, pedagogy, and the communicability of experience.

To read the editors' introduction to The Storyteller & to WIN FREE BOOKS, visit the Verso blog: http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2675-walter-benjamin-the-storyteller-the-verso-podcast-in-collaboration-with-the-london-review-bookshop

Reading: Flossie Draper

Originally published in 1967, Valerie Solanas' incendiary SCUM Manifesto called for a Society for Cutting Up Men and declared war on capitalism and patriarchy.

Today, the controversial tract has a complex relationship with contemporary landscapes of feminism and gender politics. Juliet Jacques and Ray Filar join Sophie Mayer to discuss the treatise from critical and contemporary perspectives. Taking a historical view on its problematic elements, they discuss the violence and gender essentialism of the text, as well as Solanas' visions of work and automation and why the text still thrills today.

Juliet Jacques is the author of Trans: A Memoir and a phd student in Creative and Critical Writing at University of Sussex.

Ray Filar is a writer, editor and performance artist. They tweet @RayFilar.

Sophie Mayer is author of Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema, poet and a member of queer feminist curators Club des Femmes. She tweets @tr0ublemayer.

SCUM Manifesto voice: Sam McBean, academic and feminist and queer critic. She tweets @s_mcbean

Originally published in 1967, Valerie Solanas' incendiary SCUM Manifesto called for a Society for Cutting Up Men and declared war on capitalism and patriarchy.

Today, the controversial tract has a complex relationship with contemporary landscapes of feminism and gender politics. Juliet Jacques and Ray Filar join Sophie Mayer to discuss the treatise from critical and contemporary perspectives. Taking a historical view on its problematic elements, they discuss the violence and gender essentialism of the text, as well as Solanas' visions of work and automation and why the text still thrills today.

Juliet Jacques is the author of Trans: A Memoir and a phd student in Creative and Critical Writing at University of Sussex.

Ray Filar is a writer, editor and performance artist. They tweet @RayFilar.

Sophie Mayer is author of Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema, poet and a member of queer feminist curators Club des Femmes. She tweets @tr0ublemayer.

SCUM Manifesto voice: Sam McBean, academic and feminist and queer critic. She tweets @s_mcbean

Originally published in 1967, Valerie Solanas' incendiary SCUM Manifesto called for a Society for Cutting Up Men and declared war on capitalism and patriarchy.

Today, the controversial tract has a complex relationship with contemporary landscapes of feminism and gender politics. Juliet Jacques and Ray Filar join Sophie Mayer to discuss the treatise from critical and contemporary perspectives. Taking a historical view on its problematic elements, they discuss the violence and gender essentialism of the text, as well as Solanas' visions of work and automation and why the text still thrills today.

Juliet Jacques is the author of Trans: A Memoir and a phd student in Creative and Critical Writing at University of Sussex.

Ray Filar is a writer, editor and performance artist. They tweet @RayFilar.

Sophie Mayer is author of Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema, poet and a member of queer feminist curators Club des Femmes. She tweets @tr0ublemayer.

SCUM Manifesto voice: Sam McBean, academic and feminist and queer critic. She tweets @s_mcbean

In 2011, an elite group of US Navy Seals stormed an enclosure in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden. The news did much to boost President Obama's first term and played a major part in his re-election victory the following year. Four years on, Seymour Hersh published a controversial series of essays in the London Review of Books, arguing that the story of that night, was incomplete, or worse, a lie. How realistic is it that Pakistani authorities didn't know bin Laden was living in a compound next to a military academy or have any knowledge of the US military operation?

In his book, The Killing of Osama bin Laden, Seymour Hersh presents an electrifying investigation of White House lies about the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

In this podcast he discusses the case with his editor at the London Review of Books, Christian Lorentzen.

In 2011, an elite group of US Navy Seals stormed an enclosure in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden. The news did much to boost President Obama's first term and played a major part in his re-election victory the following year. Four years on, Seymour Hersh published a controversial series of essays in the London Review of Books, arguing that the story of that night, was incomplete, or worse, a lie. How realistic is it that Pakistani authorities didn't know bin Laden was living in a compound next to a military academy or have any knowledge of the US military operation?

In his book, The Killing of Osama bin Laden, Seymour Hersh presents an electrifying investigation of White House lies about the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

In this podcast he discusses the case with his editor at the London Review of Books, Christian Lorentzen.

In 2011, an elite group of US Navy Seals stormed an enclosure in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden. The news did much to boost President Obama's first term and played a major part in his re-election victory the following year. Four years on, Seymour Hersh published a controversial series of essays in the London Review of Books, arguing that the story of that night, was incomplete, or worse, a lie. How realistic is it that Pakistani authorities didn't know bin Laden was living in a compound next to a military academy or have any knowledge of the US military operation?

In his book, The Killing of Osama bin Laden, Seymour Hersh presents an electrifying investigation of White House lies about the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

In this podcast he discusses the case with his editor at the London Review of Books, Christian Lorentzen.

Dan Hancox talks to Amina Gichinga and Linda Bellos about what it means to live in London and how, given the various challenges the city faces, it can be changed for the better.

Dan is the author of The Village Against The World, and ebooks including Kettled Youth and Fight Back! Dan tweets at @danhancox.

Linda Bellos is an activist and former leader of Lambeth Borough Council 1986-88 and chair of the Greater London Council's Women's Committee. She was the second black woman to become leader of a British local authority. She tweets @BellosLinda

Amina Gichinga is a musician and a City & East London Assembly candidate for Take Back the City. Amina tweets at @Aminaminky

Dan Hancox talks to Amina Gichinga and Linda Bellos about what it means to live in London and how, given the various challenges the city faces, it can be changed for the better.

Dan is the author of The Village Against The World, and ebooks including Kettled Youth and Fight Back! Dan tweets at @danhancox.

Linda Bellos is an activist and former leader of Lambeth Borough Council 1986-88 and chair of the Greater London Council's Women's Committee. She was the second black woman to become leader of a British local authority. She tweets @BellosLinda

Amina Gichinga is a musician and a City & East London Assembly candidate for Take Back the City. Amina tweets at @Aminaminky

Dan Hancox talks to Amina Gichinga and Linda Bellos about what it means to live in London and how, given the various challenges the city faces, it can be changed for the better.

Dan is the author of The Village Against The World, and ebooks including Kettled Youth and Fight Back! Dan tweets at @danhancox.

Linda Bellos is an activist and former leader of Lambeth Borough Council 1986-88 and chair of the Greater London Council's Women's Committee. She was the second black woman to become leader of a British local authority. She tweets @BellosLinda

Amina Gichinga is a musician and a City & East London Assembly candidate for Take Back the City. Amina tweets at @Aminaminky