A novelist, memoirist, critic, poet and screenwriter, James Lasdun has created a memorable body of work exploring the themes of existential dread, reputational damage and surveillance. The son of a well-known British architect, Lasdun is perhaps best known for his 2013 memoir about being stalked by one of his writing students, Give Me Everything You Have. In our conversation, James spoke to me about his childhood in London, as the son of Jews who had converted to Anglicanism without ever quite managing to become Christians; about his love of mythology; and about the dark fears and obsessions that run through his fiction and his non-fiction.

This episode is a co-presented with the London Review of Books

Links and References:

Besieged

Afternoon of a Faun

Give Me Everything You Have

Crazy In Love - Book Forum

He Said, She Said - The New Republic

James Lasdun Website

András Schiff, Franz Schubert, ECM Records

András Schiff, Franz Schubert - Sonatas and Impromptus, ECM Records

András Schiff, Franz Schubert - Fantasien, ECM Records