logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2024
29m 10s

Rabih Alameddine

MONOCLE
About this episode

As the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including the 2022 PEN/Faulkner award winning ‘The Wrong End of the Telescope’, Rabih Alameddine is no stranger to the living art of storytelling. His work explores worlds that may seem beyond words, everything from civil war to exile and epidemics, and yet finds the words we need to hear. Now teaching literature at Georgetown University, Alameddine delves into the next generation of writers. He speaks with Georgina Godwin on his writing career, his upbringing and future plans for his art.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Jul 6
Esther Freud on family, fiction and healing
Esther Freud reflects on her childhood and literary journey to ‘My Sister and Other Lovers’, which follows two sisters facing secrets and heartbreak.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
33m 1s
Jul 2
Damien Wilkins at the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival
Georgina Godwin meets Damien Wilkins, the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Award winner for fiction with his novel ‘Delirious’. Wilkins reflects on his early literary influences, past work and transitioning to songwriting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
31m 6s
Jun 29
Eliza Reid on crafting her first mystery
Eliza Reid speaks to Georgina Godwin about growing up in Ottawa, her time as Iceland’s first lady and her debut whodunit, ‘Death of a Diplomat’.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
24m 46s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2024
613 Celebrating the Book-Makers (with Adam Smyth) | My Last Book with Christopher de Hamel
Books are beloved objects, earning lots of praise as amazing pieces of technology and essential contributors to a civilized society. And yet, we often take these cultural miracles for granted. Who's been making these things for the last several centuries? How have they influenced ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2023
The Master Of Fiction: Ken Follett
This week, Anthony talks with one of the world’s best-loved authors, Ken Follett about his latest book The Armor of Light. Having sold over 188 million copies of his books worldwide, Ken reflects on his decades-long career, sharing why storytelling remains the “core” of his life. ... Show More
41m 31s
Mar 2025
688 Georges Simenon
The Belgian-born French writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was astonishing for his literary ambition and output. The author of something like 400 novels, which he wrote in 7-10 day bursts (after checking with his physician beforehand to ensure that he could handle the strain), he ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2022
Michael Rosen with Isy Suttie
This week on the Penguin Podcast, Isy Suttie is joined by national treasure, poet and children’s author, Michael Rosen.  He speaks to Isy about his experiences before and after contracting Covid, how to create more impactful life writing, what he now knows about death, and his ye ... Show More
1h 3m
Dec 2021
Siri Hustvedt on the Value in Embracing Ambiguity
When Siri Hustvedt was 12 years old, she began reading 19th-century novels by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain that were given to her by her Norwegian mother, and soon developed a passion for literature. She found great satisfaction in how these st ... Show More
1h 23m
Nov 2023
562 Literature Later in Life (with Myron Tuman)
Jacke starts the show with a listener email and a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #238 ("How many times these low feet staggered - "). THEN author Myron Tuman (The Stuttering Son in Literature and Psychology: Boys and Their Fathers, Don Juan and His Daughter: The Incestuous Lover ... Show More
1h 3m
Jan 2025
671 Shakespeare's Tragic Art (with Rhodri Lewis) | My Last Book with Joel Warner
It is a truth universally acknowledged that tragedy is one of the world's highest art forms, and that Shakespeare was one of the form's greatest practitioners. But how did he do it? What models did he have to draw upon, and where did he innovate? In this episode, Jacke talks to S ... Show More
1 h
Nov 2024
Live! Garth Greenwell
This week, we bring you a live interview with Garth Greenwell, conducted in October 2024 at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Garth talks about growing up in Kentucky assuming that he would die young, the teacher who gave him a path toward being an artist, and the doggedness with which ... Show More
55m 34s
Mar 2025
Love and Death: ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray
Situated on the cusp of the Romantic era, Thomas Gray’s work is a mixture of impersonal Augustan abstraction and intense subjectivity. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and continues to exert its influence on contempo ... Show More
15m 21s
Apr 29
The power and the pitfalls of narrative | Matthew Beaumont, Ruth Padel, and Theodore Dalrymple
Lost in storiesIs life a story or a sequence of events?Our narratives enable us to make sense of the complex, often confusing, world that we live in. And yet there is a risk that rather than helping us to truly understand this world, narratives can hide reality from us, providing ... Show More
42m 34s