Author Interviews

'Yellowface' explores cultural appropriation in publishing via an unlikeable narrator

7:25pm September 01, 2023

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author R.F. Kuang on her novel Yellowface and why she wanted to write a book about cultural appropriation in the publishing world.

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The novel 'Between Two Moons' is Aisha Abdel Gawad's 'love letter' to Arab Americans

7:24pm September 01, 2023

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with novelist Aisha Abdel Gawad about her new novel Between Two Moons. It's a coming of age story about teenage twins in Brooklyn and takes place during one month of Ramadan.

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Novel 'The Covenant of Water' tells of a family in India haunted by a medical mystery

6:58pm August 31, 2023

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with the author Abraham Verghese about his new novel The Covenant of Water in which a family in India is haunted by a medical mystery.

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Alice Carrière has written a new memoir called Everything/Nothing/Someone.

She was convinced she didn't exist. This is how she tethered herself to reality

5:00am August 31, 2023

As Alice Carrière entered her teen years, her brain started to splinter into a dissociative disorder. Year later, that extraordinary childhood is the basis for her new memoir.

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Books

U.S. employers are using AI to essentially reduce workers to numbers in the workplace

6:28am August 30, 2023

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with Ifeoma Ajunwa, author of The Quantified Worker, about how work lives have become quantified for the benefit of employers.

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'The Breakaway' explores how society impacts a woman's relationship with her body

5:27pm August 29, 2023

NPR's Juana Summers talks with author Jennifer Weiner about her latest novel The Breakaway. explores a woman's relationship with her body is influenced by society's rules and expectations.

Alice Carriere pulled from an extraordinary childhood to write her new memoir

5:07pm August 29, 2023

NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with writer Alice Carriere about her debut novel, Everything/Nothing/Someone.

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Vanessa Zoltan's memoir is all about how she learned to read literature like sacred texts.

This 'Jane Eyre' enthusiast invites you to treat your favorite books as sacred text

6:00am August 27, 2023

by Rachel Martin

Author and atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan finds spiritual meaning not in the Bible or the Torah but in secular texts.

Books

Angie Kim on her novel 'Happiness Falls'

8:07am August 26, 2023

by Scott Simon

NPR's Scott Simon talks with novelist Angie Kim about her family thriller, "Happiness Falls." It's about a missing father and his special needs son who may or may not know what happened to him.

Books

Author Hilary Leichter on her book 'Terrace Story'

8:07am August 26, 2023

by Scott Simon

In the new novel "Terrace Story," the lead character can turn a tiny closet into a lush terrace - through the power of her mind. NPR's Scott Simon talks with author Hilary Leichter.