Little Atoms

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-seven languages. The author of twenty books, fourteen of which are novels, she was awarded the Halldór Laxness Prize for her contribution to the art of storytelling. Shafak's previous novel, There Are Rivers In The Sky, was the UK’s bestselling literary hardback novel of 2025, selling over 500,0...

Hernan Diaz is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Trust , which won the Pulitzer Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It was named one of The New York Times ’s 100 Best Books of the Century. His previous novel, In the Distance , was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Gugg...

Isabel Allende is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than seventy-seven million books. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Since then, she has authored more than twenty-six bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including Daughter of Fortune , Island Beneath th...

Louise Kennedy grew up a few miles from Belfast. She is the author of the acclaimed short-story collection, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac , which won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel Trespasses, published in 2022, has been translated into over twenty languages. It won Eason Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, Book of the Year: Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards...

China Miéville is a Sunday Times bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction. His novels include The City & The City , Embassytown , and Perdido Street Station . A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, he has won the World Fantasy, the Hugo, and the Arthur C. Clarke awards, among others. His non-fiction includes a study of international law and a history of the Russian Revoluti...

Fatima Bhutto is the author of the novels The Runaways and the Women’s Prize for Fiction-longlisted The Shadow of the Crescent Moon , and the non-fiction New Kings of the World and Songs of Blood and Sword , which deals with her father’s murder and the Bhutto family's history in Pakistani politics. Bhutto’s journalism and essays have appeared in the New Statesman, New York Times and Guardian , and...

Marlon James is the author of the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings ; the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf ; the New York Times -bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King ; The Book of Night Women ; and John Crow’s Devil . In addition to the Booker Prize, his novels have won the American Book Award, the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, t...

In the last episode of the Summer archive series, Sarah Polley talks to Neil about her book Run Towards The Danger, first broadcast in July 2022. Normal service resumes next week! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From August 2022, Neil talks to Maggie O'Farrell about her novel The Marriage Portrait. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From September 2022, Robert Harris talks to Neil about his novel Act of Oblivion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Talks to Madeline Miller about her novel Circe, first broadcast in August 2018. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From March 2023, Laura Cumming talks to Neil about her book Thunderclap, Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From July 2023, Neil talks to Mark O'Connell about his book A Thread of Violence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 2022, Neil talks to Yiyun Li about her novel The Book of Goose . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Barry talks to Neil about his novel The Heart In Winter . First broadcast in June 2024, and the 900th episode of Little Atoms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From back in September 2021, Neil talks to Lauren Groff about her novel Matrix. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First broadcast in January 2023, Bret Easton Ellis talks to Neil about his novel The Shards . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From March 2023, Neil talks to Alice Winn about her novel In Memoriam , which won the Waterstones Novel of the Year award, and the British Book Awards Debut of the Year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Denny talks to Adrian Chiles about his book The Good Drinker, from November 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ann Patchett is the author of novels, works of nonfiction, and children's books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women's Prize in the U.K., and the National Humanities Medal. TIME magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, wher...

Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in fashion design. Shuggie Bain , his first novel, won the Booker Prize and both 'Debut of the Year' and 'Book of the Year' at the British Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for the US National Book Award for Fiction, among many other awards. His second nov...

Daniel Lavelle is an Orwell Prize-winning freelance feature writer from Manchester. His first book, Down and Out , was published in 2022 and won a Royal Society of Literature award for non-fiction writing. He has covered topics such as mental health, homelessness, and culture for the Guardian (for whom he co-authored the series ‘The Empty Doorway’), New Statesman and the Independent . He received...

Daniel Trilling writes about nationalism, migration and human rights for publications including the  London Review of Books , the  Guardian  and the  New York Times . His work has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, the Political Book Awards and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book,&nbs...

Claire Fuller gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn't start writing until she was forty. She has written five previous novels including:  Unsettled Ground , which in 2021 won the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction,  Our Endless Numbered Days , which won the Desmond Elliott P...

Richard Byrne is a dramatist and journalist. He was the editor of The Wilson Quarterly from 2019 to 2021. His work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Guardian, Time, BookForum and Zona Motel. His music criticism includes liner notes for releases by R.E.M. and Uncle Tupelo. His work as a dramatist includes two musicals: Nero/Pseudo (written with Jon Langford and Jim Elkington) and Co...