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The History of Literature #314 – Gabriel García Márquez (with Patricia Engel)
Author Patricia Engel joins Jacke to talk about her childhood in New Jersey, her artistic family, her lifelong love of stories and writing, her new novel Infinite Country, and “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother” by Gabriel García Márquez, a story she first read as a 14-year-old and which she Continue reading
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The History of Literature #313 – “Spring Snow” by Yukio Mishima
After taking a look at the eventful life and dramatic death of Yukio Mishima in our last episode, Jacke turns to a closer look at the works of Mishima, including appraisals by Jay McInerney and Haruki Murakami, before turning to a deep dive into the world of Spring Snow, the first volume in Mishima’s four-book masterpiece The Continue reading
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The History of Literature #312 – Yukio Mishima
In November of 1970, the most famous novelist in Japan dropped off the final pages of his masterpiece with his publisher, then went to a military office in Tokyo, where he and a small band of supporters took the commander hostage. The novelist – whose name was Yukio Mishima – then appeared on the balcony Continue reading
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The History of Literature #311 – Frederick Douglass Learns to Read
Jacke takes a look at adult literacy and continuing education, anti-literacy laws in nineteenth-century America, and two famous passages from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), in which the young slave manages to overcome obstacles and teach himself to read and write. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, Continue reading
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The History of Literature #309 – HoL Presents: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (A Storybound Project)
The History of Literature presents a short story by Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, produced by Storybound. PLUS! In preparation for our Writers Block episode, we hear from three great writers – Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, and Franz Kafka – who privately (and achingly) wrote about not writing. Enjoy! Deesha Philyaw’s debut Continue reading
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The History of Literature #308 – New Westerns (with Anna North)
Anna North, author and journalist, joins us for a full discussion of the Western genre, how twenty-first-century authors have revived the form with modern-day sensibilities and a more layered understanding of history, her love of George Herriman’s quietly subversive Krazy Kat comics, and her new novel Outlawed, a riveting adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of Continue reading
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The History of Literature #307 – Keats’s Ode to Psyche
In 1819, John Keats wrote a letter to his brother George and his sister-in-law Giorgiana, who had recently moved from London to America. In the letter, Keats included a poem, which he introduced as “the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains…I hope it will encourage me to write Continue reading
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The History of Literature #306 – Keats’s Great Odes (with Anahid Nersessian)
In 1819, John Keats quit his job as an assistant surgeon, abandoned an epic poem he was writing, and focused his poetic energies on shorter works. What followed was one of the most fertile periods in the history of poetry, as in a few months’ time Keats completed six masterpieces, including such celebrated classics as Continue reading
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The History of Literature #305 – The Remains of the Day
Following up on the recommendation of our guest Chigozie Obioma, Jacke takes a closer look at Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day, including the story of how Ishiguro came to write it, what he found missing, and how the singer Tom Waits helped show Ishiguro how to transform the novel into great art. Help Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 