A series of one-off interviews, usually longer than normal, with some of our favourite Faber authors. Some have a great body of work to talk about, whilst others we capture on fleeting visits to the UK ...

Faber Authors Spotlight

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was the long-awaited first novel from one of today’s most original and electrifying literary voices, Junot Diaz. The book was published early in 2008, which is when we were lucky enough to welcome Junot to the Faber offices, and when he gave this great interview.

Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

In this extended interview, Sebastian Barry speaks about the many histories of Ireland and, even closer to home, remnants of his own family history to be found in his new book The Secret Scripture in the fictional shape of Roseanne McNulty, one of the novel's two narrators, confined to an asylum for sixty years.  
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Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture

In a special two-part interview, George Miller talks to Kazuo Ishiguro about his new book Nocturnes, a collection of longish short stories with related themes of music and night, and ambition and disappointment. Under discussion are the challenges of writing in an unfamiliar form, and Ishiguro's approach to writing comedy. Here's the second part of the interview: https://soundcloud.com/faberbooks/kazuo-ishiguro-on-the-remains.

Kazuo Ishiguro: On Nocturnes and Other Books (Part 1)

In part two of our interview we discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's earlier books, including the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day and The Unconsoled, which on publication baffled critics but is now viewed as one of the author's greatest achievements. There's discussion too of Ishiguro's childhood and memories of Japan, and what he's working on next. Here's part one of our interview: http://soundcloud.com/faberbooks/kazuo-ishiguro-on-nocturnes.

Kazuo Ishiguro: On The Remains of the Day and Other Books (Part 2)

In this rare, 30-minute interview with P. D. James, the doyenne of British Crime tells us about her writing career, which began with the publication of Cover Her Face in 1962. She recalls the years spent developing her craft and the evolution of Adam Dalgliesh, the writers that inspired her, and the role of detective fiction in today's society. A real treat for Crime Fiction fans.

P. D. James: A Life in Crime

With Occupied City, David Peace is two-thirds of the way through his Tokyo trilogy. In the first book, Tokyo Year Zero, the setting was a city in the time of defeat. With his latest book it's a city under occupation. The novel's background is the very real (and famous) Hirosawa poisoning case in which 12 people died. Find out what David Peace had to say, including the reason for using 12 different narrative voices, in this exclusive interview with George Miller.

David Peace: Occupied City & The Tokyo Trilogy

Since 1988, when her first novel The Bean Trees was published, Barbara Kingsolver has become one of the world's most admired writers. Her 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible was picked for Oprah's Book Club and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. In 2010 she went one better, winning the Orange Prize for Fiction with The Lacuna. We were thrilled that she found time on a flying visit to the UK in July to tell us more about it.


Barbara Kingsolver: The Lacuna

'I need to make these two men one: the warm, embracing man I adored, and the indifferent, sometimes self-centered, occasionally cruel man who could drink too much, could be crushing, contemptuous, defeating, deadening - this is hard.' So says Judy Golding, writing about her father, William Golding, as she publishes her extraordinary memoir, 'The Children of Lovers' in the year of the centenary of the Nobel Laureate's birth.

Judy Golding: The Children of Lovers

The author of several previous novels, Steve Sem-Sandberg has achieved international acclaim for his detailed, vivid and profoundly affecting portrait of the ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz in 'The Emperor of Lies'.Sebastian Barry called the book ‘monumental’; Carmen Callil compared his achievement in bringing a whole society to life to Dickens. It's an extraordinary work of fiction, and we were delighted to get the chance to have the author tell us more.


Steve Sem-Sandberg: The Emperor of Lies

Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future – or the past?

Bestselling novelist Iain Pears discusses his new work ARCADIA, to be read as an app, written using specially-commissioned software and developed for readers by Touchpress and Faber, the partners behind multi-award-winning apps including The Waste Land and Shakespeare’s Sonnets for iPad. It will be released as a free app with in-app purchase on the App Store for iPhone and iPad at the end of August, prior to the novel’s UK hardback publication on 3 September 2015. 

www.appstore.com/arcadiabyiainpears

Faber Podcast -  Arcadia by Iain Pears

In this extended interview, Michael Frayn talks about his childhood in leafy Surrey during the war and his relationship with his father, so memorably and movingly portrayed in his memoir, My Father’s Fortune. He also talks about the impact of the loss of his mother when he was twelve and his early ambitions to be a writer.

Michael Frayn: My Father's Fortune and Other Writing

Recorded at Topping's in Bath, shortly before a packed event, author Sebastian Barry discussed his latest novel, 'On Canaan's Side', with interviewer George Miller. It's a riveting, 30-minute conversation covering the shadow of events from Sebastian's own family's past in his fiction, and the repercussions of some quite extraordinary events. 
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Sebastian Barry: On Canaan's Side

It's 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been blissfully married for six years. But a murderer in their midst has other ideas ... 'Death Comes to Pemberley' is a brilliant new 'sequel' to Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' - but one with a deadly twist. In this extended interview, P. D. James shares her appreciation for Austen, and discusses the challenge of taking such a beloved work of fiction in a wholly unexpected direction ... 
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P. D. James: Death Comes to Pemberley

Stewart Lee's previous book How I Escaped My Certain Fate drew on three live shows to deconstruct the nature of stand-up comedy. With its heavy use of footnotes there was a nod in structure to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. For his new book, the slimmer volume Stewart Lee! The 'If You Prefer a Milder Comedian Please Ask for One!' EP, Lee draws inspiration from The Specials' 1980 five-track EP The Special AKA Live!, live material surplus to any long player. This new book is based on just one stand-up show, in which Stewart Lee examines the mechanics of comedy and the stand-up's craft, as he explains in this interview with comedy critic and Resonance FM DJ Ben Thompson.

If You Prefer a Milder Comedian - Stewart Lee: The Podcast

Faber and Faber is one of the great independent publishing houses in London. We were established in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber and our first editor was T. S. Eliot. We are proud to publish prize-winning fiction and non-fiction, as well as an unrivalled list of modern poets and playwrights. Among our list of writers we have five Booker Prize winners and twelve Nobel Laureates, and we continue to seek out the most exciting and innovative writers at work today. 

Faber Authors Spotlight

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