Today

'We Were Liars' author returns for more teenage catharsis in 'We Fell Apart'

E. Lockhart understands the struggle of being a teenager. Her first novel We Were Liars was a standout YA hit of 2014, celebrated (and at times, criticized) amongst teens in particular for its twisty and devastating coming-of-age narrative set on a fictional island near ... Show More

7m 49s

Yesterday

Comic journalist Joe Sacco on his portrait of deadly riots in Uttar Pradesh, India

In 2013, two young Hindu cousins killed a Muslim man in a rural part of Uttar Pradesh, India. What followed was a series of alternating violence in the region between Hindus and Muslims. Renowned comic journalist Joe Sacco's new book, The Once And Future Riot, investigat ... Show More

8m 55s

Nov 24

Justinian Huang’s new novel follows a Taiwanese-American family intent on a male heir

Justinian Huang’s new novel Lucky Seed is about a single, gay son pressured by his Taiwanese-American family to produce a male heir. In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, Huang tells NPR’s Ailsa Chang that his own family asked him to have a baby boy – or else ... Show More

8m 58s

Oct 2021

BONUS: 'Nina' And 'Just Us' Offer Ways To Start A Conversation On Race

After the protests last year, we heard the phrase "racial reckoning" a lot, as some groups of people struggled to catch up with what's just been reality for many others. On this episode of NPR's new Book of the Day podcast, we've got two books that might help you reckon with that ... Show More

18m 40s

Jan 2021

Claudia Rankine On The Uneasy Conversations Between 'Just Us'

After a year that offered many moments of reflection—from the coronavirus pandemic, to protests for racial justice, to the long election season—acclaimed poet Claudia Rankine's latest book offers a framework to process it all. That book is called Just Us: An American Conversation ... Show More

30m 55s

Sep 2021

Melissa Daniels-Rauterkus, "Afro-Realisms and the Romances of Race: Rethinking Blackness in the African American Novel" (LSU Press, 2020)

From the 1880s to the early 1900s, a particularly turbulent period of U.S. race relations, the African American novel provided a powerful counternarrative to dominant and pejorative ideas about blackness. In Afro-Realisms and the Romances of Race: Rethinking Blackness in the Afri ... Show More

2h 28m

Jul 2020

Radical Imagination: Tracy K. Smith, Marilyn Nelson, and Terrance Hayes on Poetry in Our Times

In a special episode of the Poetry Podcast, Tracy K. Smith, Marilyn Nelson, and Terrance Hayes join <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/kevin-young">Kevin Young</a> to read their work, and to discuss its relationship to protest and liberat ... Show More

45m 41s

Apr 2024

Simple Thing, Felt: Nina LaCour on Unwrapping a Moment

"I spend a lot of time trying to hope that I'll remember little things and how a certain simple thing felt. … Writing is one way of trying to capture that feeling, even if I'm fictionalizing it still.” - Nina LaCourIf Nina LaCour were a drink, she would be a cozy cup of tea. You’ ... Show More

37m 57s

In song and poetry, 'Nina' and 'Just Us'...