The Spiracle Podcast

We speak to Abi Palmer, author and reader of Sanatorium, about how the book (and subsequent edition audiobook) came to be. She describes the 'piecing together' of the text as 'forensic', after the original research was done as video collection rather than as writing, a lot of the first narration being recorded verbally before it was ever on paper. She talks about her mentors in the process, includ...

We spoke to Olja Knežević, author of Catherine the Great and the Small, about being the first woman writer to be translated into English, the influence of war on Balkan literature and culture, and the characters in the novel. Catherine the Great and the Small is translated brilliantly into English by Paula Gordon & Ellen Elias-Bursac, and Heather Craney's reading brings Catherine's world to li...

Angelo Paragoso, reader of Venom by Saneh Sangsuk (translated by Mui Poopoksakul), reflects on growing up bilingual, and the simlarities and differences between Thai and Philippine pronunciation.

Mui Poopoksakul, translator of Thai to English, talks with producer Kate Bland about translating Saneh Sangsuk's work, in particular Venom. The relationship between author, translator and reader in this case is strong, with Mui able to discuss the Thai with Saneh Sangsuk and the pronunciation for the audiobook with Angelo Paragoso. She reflects here on her work as a translator and the state of Tha...

Jack Holden and producer Kate Bland reflect in the studio after finishing recording Love, Leda.

We speak to Sam Fisher, bookseller, writer, and publisher at Peninsula Press, bringing Love, Leda to listeners with Spiracle this month. His bookshop Burley Fisher is a champion of independent presses. He speaks about walking the line between bookselling and publishing, creative nonfiction, and discovering the right book at the right time.

Kate Bland speaks to Diane Whitty, the translator of Banzeiro Òkòtó: The Amazon as the Centre of the World from the Portugese by Eliane Brum. Banzeiro Òkòtó is itself a transformative journey – the pull, whirlwind, eddy in the water – with an elusive meaning. Diane channels Eliane, bringing her passion and the lyricism of her writing to an English speaking readership.

Toby Litt interviews Eliane Brum, author of Banzeiro Òkòtó: The Amazon as the Centre of the World, an edition audiobook now available from Spiracle. It is a book transporting and transforming in equal parts. Eliane is an award-winning Brazilian journalist, writer, and documentarist, and a founder of Sumaúma: Journalism from the Centre of the World, a trilingual news platform based in Altamira, in...

After the incredible three and a half days of recording The Birthday Party, Lydia Leonard and audiobook producer Kate Bland sit together in the studio and discuss the book, set over the course of one thrilling day.

The Birthday Party has been described as 'a thriller in slow motion', with short moments stretched over many pages. Lydia Leonard, reader of The Birthday Party, interviews Daniel Levin Becker, translator from French of the text by Laurent Mauvignier. Daniel and Lydia share what it is to translate an original text in their respective ways, of finding a voice, narratively and aurally. Daniel is a me...

Raad Rawi, reader of The Mariner by Taleb Alrefai (translated by Russell Harris), talks about conjuring the setting of The Mariner from his own experience, voicing the sea, and how different the languages of Arabic and English are. He reflects on the sense of pride that calls out of this story which opens up a pre-oil Kuwait running on the demanding work of fishing for oysters and pearls.

Banipal promotes and celebrates publication of contemporary Arab authors in original English or in English translation, and encourages, in the UK and beyond, readership of Arab writers and poets for both the particularity and the universality of their voices. It was founded by two people passionate about literature, Iraqi author Samuel Shimon and British editor Margaret Obank, to publish inspiring...

John Sam Jones speaks to the repression of his Welsh language, how despite it being a 'more ponderous language', he could never describe being gay in Welsh due to it's historical use in only the church or at home. Some languages are better for talking about some things than others, but we asked which he feels reaches closer to his truth. The Journey is Home is a Spiracle Guest Edition for November...

Some books only make themselves known to the narrator during the recording. This was the case for William Hope, reading Joseph Fasano's The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing (Spiracle Edition for November) as discussed in conversation together.

'It's not a crime novel, it's a novel about a crime' – Graeme Macrae Burnet, author of October's guest edition, His Bloody Project, talks to Leigh Wilson, publisher at Spiracle.

We spoke to Stefan Tobler, publisher at And Other Stories, about being the first independent publisher to drive works in translation to an English-speaking readership. And Other Stories is co-publisher of Spiracle Edition for September, 'Ti Amo' by Hanne Ørstavik (translated by Martin Aitken).

For Murmurations, we spoke to Simon Russell, illustrator of the Spiracle edition audiobook of Ti Amo, about his process of making art, empathy, and the 'dance' of creating a final illustration.

For Murmurations, Spiracle's Leigh Wilson talks to the author of Eve Out of Her Ruins, a guest edition for September. Ananda shines a light on how her background in anthropology feeds into her work, into a book with such insight into the way that oppression and poverty work alongside the legacies of colonialism.

In the beginning was the word, not the number. Founder of Fitzcarraldo Editions, Jacques Testard, reflects on the efforts of this family-owned literary publisher: to remain focused on the writing rather than the commerce, while making the business work. He talked to Spiracle's Kate Bland.

With Playthings as the August edition, Alex Pheby's gripping, fictional take on the 19th-century German judge Daniel Paul Schreber's experience of psychosis, we talk to Susie Orbach. With Orbach, we open out from the Schreber case to ask about the value of psychotherapy... the importance of 'the session', whether it's writing or talking, how it works and whether it can help an individual join the...

Chipo Kureya, reader of Spiracle edition, These Bones Will Rise Again by Panashe Chigumadzi, reflects on her experience of reading the book. Where is home, Chipo asks, when you have lived your whole life in the diasporic limbo? "What Panashe has managed to capture is this feeling of belonging and not belonging."

For the Spiracle Podcast, Curator Leigh Wilson talks with Panashe Chigumadzi, author of the Spiracle edition for June, These Bones Will Rise Again. They talk about issues of colonialism, language and national and personal identity in Chigumadzi's essay on the uprising of the Zimbabwean people against Robert Mugabe.

Our curator speaks to the celebrated author of When We Cease to Understand the World in a discussion which spans the book’s restless genre hybridity, the tensions between truth and fiction, myth and science, and the electrifying endeavour of attempting to write beyond the bounds of human rationality.

We spoke with Adam Freudenheim, Publisher and Managing Director of Pushkin Press, about the ups and downs of running an independent press and how he found Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, now available as an audiobook on Spiracle.

Meike Ziervogel, founder of Peirene Press, remembers Birgit Vanderbeke with Leigh WIlson for the Spiracle Podcast. Meike has recently moved from Peirene to co-found Alsama: education centres, sports hubs and social enterprises in refugee camps in Lebanon. (Peirene Press today is run by Stella Sabin and James Tookey)