Lit with Charles

Today’s guest is a truly remarkable creative – novellist, screenwriter, playwright, producer, past resident of the Royal Court Theatre, co-founder of the Harvard Human Rights Journal , winner of the John Cassavetes Award for film, as well as the first American to receive a fellowship to the European Court of Human Rights. I spoke with Alice Austen about her debut book, 33 Place Brugmann, which is...

Today’s episode marks a very fun development in the Lit With Charles universe: my first repeat podcast guest! Caitlin Macy  is an American writer known for her sharp portrayals of class, privilege, and social dynamics – especially of New York City’s elite. So, when I visited the States a few weeks ago, I knew I wanted to make time to chat with her. Caitlin is a fantastic writer, and I found her th...

This week, I spoke with the Irish-Canadian author Joanna Pocock, whose new memoir, Greyhound, absolutely blew me away. The story follows Joanna as she recounts two journeys – one from 2006, and one from 2023 – that she took across the United States of America. However, unlike the classic ‘roadtrip’ novel, Joanna undertook the entirety of both journeys by Greyhound bus. What follows is an incredibl...

My guest today is Tash Aw, the acclaimed author of The South , a moving coming-of-age novel set during the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis. The story follows 16-year-old Jay as he spends a summer on his family’s orchard in southern Malaysia, navigating family tension, economic uncertainty, and a tender relationship with another boy. It’s a quiet, potent emotional journey, as both wrestle wit...

My guest today is artist and writer Gethan Dick, an Irish-born author, living in Marseille, who has written a very interesting book about survival in a post-apocalyptic world. Specifically, how pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing interface with a desperate quest for humanity’s continuation. In the episode, we talk about the emotional and philosophical questions that arise when survival becomes...

In this episode, I sit down with celebrated South African novelist and playwright Damon Galgut, a literary voice I’ve admired for years. Damon Galgut is the acclaimed author of The Promise , winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, and has been shortlisted for the prestigious literary award three times over the course of his writing career. We discuss his lifelong relationship with literature, his unique...

Sometimes you meet a person who seems to have done it all – and today’s guest is definitely one of those guys. Ed Park is an American writer, journalist and general man of letters, born in New York, of Korean extraction. And, along with writing truly remarkable fiction, over the last few decades, he’s been involved with all sides of the literary sphere. We met on a rainy morning in New York City w...

It was an incredible honour to interview an author I have been following for a long time, and itching to get on the show. Sue Prideaux is an acclaimed Anglo‑Norwegian biographer and novelist. Her works include I Am Dynamite!, a biography of Friedrich Nietzsche I read and reviewed last year, and more recently Wild Thing, a biography of French artist Paul Gauguin. I Am Dynamite! was named The Times...

My guest today is someone I’m lucky enough to have known personally for many years, so getting the chance to interview him today was a real treat. Aastish Taseer is a writer and thinker who straddles many cultures – Indian, American, British – and this cultural journey infuses his writing with refined and penetrative insights. I first met him in India, when I was living in Delhi and he took me und...

To kick off the new season, I’m joined by the brilliant Lee Cole , whose writing captures the heart, complexity, and contradictions of contemporary America. Raised in rural western Kentucky, Lee’s fiction explores themes of identity, class, and belonging with a rare mix of tenderness and clarity. In this episode, we talk about the power of literature to reveal lives and landscapes we might never o...

Time to close another season of the Lit with Charles podcast! During this second season, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to some truly amazing authors about the books that have influenced them, the books they’ve written, and how they approach their work. For this episode, I've gone through the archive of interviews to shine a spotlight on a few of my favourite moments. It's an eclectic m...

Gertrude Stein is a name that inspires equal amounts of both awe and fear in prospective readers. An absolute icon in her time, she was an unparalleled tastemaker: collecting work from Picasso and Matisse when they were unknown local painters; mentoring Hemingway and Fitzgerald as bright-eyed, unpublished hopefuls; and hosting ‘talk of the town’ salons at her Parisian abode. However, when it comes...

In this episode, I’m joined by Irish writer Sarah Maria Griffin to talk about the four books that have most shaped her creative journey – from early influences to enduring literary obsessions. It’s a fantastic conversation, ending with her newest work, Eat The Ones You Love , a bold and visceral work of feminist horror. In the episode we talk about writing as transformation, the power and joy of h...

Today’s episode looks a lot like the last one. Again, I wanted to dive deeper into one of our Book Club selections and in March, we read “Dream Count” by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In this episode, we look at her biography, at this specific novel, and how it fits into her wider work.  If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and follow me on Instagram (@litwithcharles)...

Today’s episode looks a little different – rather than interviewing a guest about their work, I’m getting to grips with our last Lit With Charles book club pick. We read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room last month as a community, and I, along with many of you, absolutely loved it. So, I’m using this space to reflect on that experience, share my thoughts and feelings about the book, and take a momen...

Today, I’ve got an absolute treat for you: I sat down with Oluwaseun Olayiwola—poet, choreographer, and all-around creative powerhouse—to talk about his latest collection of poems, Strange Beach . Oluwaseun is one of those rare artists who moves seamlessly between the page and the stage. As a choreographer, his work has graced performance spaces from London to Paris, and as a poet, he’s got a voic...

In this episode of Lit with Charles , I sit down with Benjamin Markovits to discuss his latest novel, The Rest of Our Lives . This beautifully reflective book follows Tom, a middle-aged father who, after dropping his youngest daughter at college, keeps driving, embarking on an unplanned journey that forces him to confront the unresolved trauma of an affair, a failing marriage, and a mysterious hea...

The improbable destinies of two Soviet female spies, connected by a modernist building in North London, is an intriguing premise for any spy novel, let alone one that introduces elements of architectural design in its story. But when those destinies reflect a larger literary opus and sources of inspiration, as they do for today’s guest, then the conversation expands significantly. My guest today i...

Childhood, and specifically adolescence, is a period of life that can be pretty tough and at times traumatic. It’s very fertile ground for literature but it’s not easy to get right.  In this episode, I'm joined by Michael Amherst, the author of the upcoming novel The Boyhood of Cain which deals with the period of adolescence, and themes of moral & sexual turmoil. The book feels timeless, with...

In today’s episode I have the pleasure of speaking with Rachel Cockerell, a London-based author, whose first foray into writing began as a family memoir, and evolved into a remarkable and innovative work of historical non-fiction called Melting Point. Melting Point is a great 2024 release from Headline, and will be coming out in Spring of 2025 in the States. The book was longlisted for the 2024 Ba...

Well, we’ve made it to the end of 2024. I love putting together this list each December because it forces me to look back on a year of reading, try to create some order out of the chaos, and figure out what it is about the stories that I came across that I did and didn’t appreciate. Some books were clear losers. But some took me on crazy journeys, which I knew from the first few pages would stay w...

There’s something about the idea of a ‘genius’ that has always captivated us. Whether it’s the artist painting their masterpiece or the entrepreneur betting on the future, we’re captivated by people who seem to see the world differently – and stake everything on that vision. While Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos might be household names, there’s one figure who I’d argue is even more fascinating: the mave...

The memoir is a fascinating form to explore. I’m always intrigued as to how an author can adapt their life and fit it into the confines of a page. How does one capture all its complexities, contradictions, and fleeting moments, in a narrative that feels both honest and coherent? My guest today is Susanna Crossman, a British-French writer, essayist, and clinical arts therapist, who has just publish...

So this episode is a bit unusual for a variety of reasons. First of all, it’s with a good friend of mine – novelist Arthur Larrue. As you might have guessed from his name, though, Arthur Larrue is French and this entire interview is conducted in French. So unless you speak French, or are trying to test your linguistic abilities, this episode might not be the one for you. However, if you are a fell...

Welcome to this very special episode of the Lit With Charles podcast, where instead of interviewing an interesting guest, I’m actually responding to 10 listeners’ burning questions! Today, you’ll get to hear about my earliest memory of falling in love with reading, and how Stephen King's thrilling tales resonated in  my pre-teen years. I’ll be spilling the beans on why Roberto Bolaño's 'The Savage...