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by Los Angeles Review of Books
The Los Angeles Review of Books Radio Hour is a weekly show featuring interviews, readings and discussions about all things literary. Hosted by LARB Editors-at-Large Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman.
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- Today57 min
Soyica Diggs Colbert on the Radical Community of the Village Gate
Eric Newman and Kate Wolf speak with Soyica Diggs Colbert about her latest book, Freedom's Gate: Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone Live at the New York Nightclub That Shaped the Civil Rights Movement. The book traces the intersecting lives and careers of these five legendary Black artists who honed their craft and found community at the Village Gate, a New York nightclub that became an important gathering place for artistic experimentation and the political currents of the Civil Rights Movement. Colbert discusses what made the Village Gate such a unique space, how the women she profiles in the book learned from and leaned on each other, and what lessons we might take in the present from this engrossing mid-century history.
- 1 weeks ago32 min
Jane Schoenbrun's "Public Access Afterworld"
Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher speak with filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun, the writer and director behind Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and I Saw the TV Glow. Schoenbrun discusses their debut novel, Public Access Afterworld, a propulsive blend of conspiracy theory, sci-fi, mystery, and early internet nostalgia. The book opens with two teenagers encountering a mysterious transmission coming through the TV static just after broadcast has switched from analog to digital. When one of the teens disappears and the other is suspected of murder, their lives become entangled with a range of characters across decades, all intersecting with a strange alternate dimension lurking on the other side of the TV screen. Schoenbrun discusses the creative possibilities they found in fiction, their ambivalent sense of media as both refuge and threat, liminality and nostalgia, and how they've been writing TV shows in their mind since childhood.
- 2 weeks ago59 min
On Honesty
After watching Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's new documentary You Can See Everything, we're revisiting our chat show, "On Honesty," this week. In this special episode, Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman discuss the "honesty crisis" facing contemporary culture. Using a recent book by the philosopher Christian Miller for reference, the hosts examine the internet as an engine for dishonesty, fueling everything from deepfakes to infidelity, AI cheating, political manipulation, and influencer peddling. Is dishonesty just part of the human condition, and perhaps even the social contract? What would a culture of radical honesty — or radical transparency — look like, and is that what we want?
- 3 weeks ago51 min
Looking Back: 'Once Upon a Time in Harlem'
Kate Wolf and Eric Newman are joined by the director and cinematographer, David Greaves, and his daughter, producer Liani Greaves, to speak about their new documentary, Once Upon a Time in Harlem. Originally conceived by David's father, the filmmaker William Greaves, Once Upon a Time in Harlem was shot in 1972 at a party that Willian engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. During the span of a long afternoon, this extraordinary group reflected on – and argued about – their politics, aesthetics, ambitions, and history. Greaves captured a crucial moment when the Renaissance's cultural contributions were at risk of being overshadowed. But through interviews with the artists Romare Bearden and Aaron Douglas, the writers Arna Bontemps and Richard Bruce Nugent, and the activist Regina Andrews, among many others, he offered an intimate, firsthand account of the generation that transformed American art and literature at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unfinished at the time of Greaves death in 2014, David and Liani have since completed the film and recovered a vital chapter of American cultural history, which illuminates both the struggles and questions of the Harlem Renaissance and the way they continue to resonate today.
- 4 weeks ago52 min
Fady Joudah's "Exhibit G"
Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher are joined by Palestinian American poet, translator and physician Fady Joudah to discuss his latest book, Exhibit G. The collection, a nominee for the National Book Award in Poetry, brings together poetry, prose, and photographs on the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In this bold and illuminating work, Joudah wrestles with language, perspective, as well as the innate tensions within the writing itself: How to document a genocide in English, the language of the oppressor? How to resist what Joudah calls the "museumification" of the Palestinian people? And how can we challenge ourselves to confront immense suffering for what it is? Joudah discusses his work as a writer and a doctor, how he wants the book to be read, and the persistence of Palestinian poetry.
- Oct 2, 202647 min
Trauma!
In this special chat episode, Medaya Ocher, Eric Newman, and Kate Wolf use Catherine Liu's new book Traumatized to dive into the political uses and pitfalls of trauma. Liu argues that the elite professional class has fully absorbed the trauma narrative; the story of an individual's suffering and recovery courses through the culture on social and mass media not as a tool for liberation, but as a means of keeping the status quo. In turning our gaze away from class struggle, the discourse of trauma on the mainstream left has largely remained deaf to questions of economic equality. Medaya, Eric, and Kate walk through Liu's argument, debating everything from the sins of Betty Frieidan and Oprah Winfrey to true crime and celebrity documentaries. Have we all become too traumatized to effectively resist in the present?
- Sep 25, 20261h 3m
Samuel Stein's "A Right to Housing?"
The writer and housing policy advocate Samuel Stein joins Kate Wolf to speak about his new book, A Right to Housing? It lays out how housing could indeed become a human right, accessible to all, through things like the decommodification of the real estate market, the construction of—and conversion to—more social housing, federal regulation, and continued tenant organizing. The second half of the book, meanwhile, contends with just how distant many of these steps seem in the present, and even throughout history. Stein talks about the oversimplification of YIMBY versus NIMBY, the fix against public housing from its inception, how cities are contending (or not) with climate change, and the small victories that keep activists going in the face of an uncertain future.
- Sep 18, 20261h 1m
Astra Taylor and Naomi Klein's "End Times Fascism"
Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher speak to Astra Taylor and Naomi Klein about their new book, End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World. A remarkably up to date analysis of our present moment of "messianic" wars in the Middle East and Silicon Valley's go-for broke investment in AI and space travel, the book looks at the shared narrative that unites a coalition of evangelical Christians, tech bros, the Trump administration and right-wing governments across the world. In all of these factions, Klein and Taylor identify a core belief: the apocalypse is actually desirable. Rather than try to solve the very real threats of our time, fallout would be beneficial for the powerful, who could take shelter in their bunkers, or on their islands, or on Mars. Taylor and Klein, however, find hope in the already growing movement against AI data centers, the weakening support of Trump's base, and the mayoral run of Zohran Mamadani, whose joyful campaign they call the antithesis of fascism.
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About LARB Radio Hour
The Los Angeles Review of Books Radio Hour is a weekly show featuring interviews, readings and discussions about all things literary. Hosted by LARB Editors-at-Large Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman.
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