The Shakespeare and Company Interview

• The Shape of Survival: Eimear McBride on Love, Art, and the City

  In this textured conversation, author Eimear McBride joins Adam Biles at Shakespeare and Company to discuss her latest novel The City Changes Its Face. Set in Camden Town in the 1990s, the book revisits characters from The Lesser Bohemians as they navigate the complexities of love, art, aging, trauma, and parenthood. McBride explores the enduring impact of childhood abuse, the fraught territory of families, and the search for creative meaning as her protagonists transition from actors to writers and filmmakers. She also reflects on the changing face of London, her writing process, and how voice, rhythm, and instinct drive her work. With warmth, candour, and a touch of wry humour, McBride shares insights into the emotional and formal risks of fiction, the influence of modernism, and why survival—not just suffering—deserves narrative space.Buy The City Changes Its Face: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/the-city-changes-its-faceEimear McBride is the author of four novels: A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, The Lesser Bohemians, Strange Hotel and The City Changes Its Face. She held the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading and is the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Goldsmiths Prize, Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Katie Kitamura on Fiction’s Shifting Realities

  Katie Kitamura joins Adam Biles to discuss her remarkable novel Audition. Centred on a middle-aged actress whose settled life is upended by a young man claiming to be her son, Audition blurs the lines between performance, identity, and narrative certainty. Kitamura reflects on the novel’s dual structure—a “rabbit-duck” ambiguity—and her fascination with roles we perform in relationships, particularly within marriage and family. The conversation explores the mutability of identity, the ethical power of embracing contradiction, and the unique capacity of the novel to hold multiple truths simultaneously. Kitamura also discusses craft, genre, and the challenges of maintaining ambiguity without sacrificing narrative tension. An essential listen for readers drawn to fiction that resists easy answers and revels in complexity.Buy Audition: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/audition-3Katie Kitamura is the author of five novels, including Intimacies, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2021 by the New York Times. It was also one of Barack Obama's favourite books of the year, and was longlisted for a National Book Award and a PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Kitamura's novel A Separation was a New York Times Notable Book. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and is being adapted for film and television. A recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and other honours, she teaches in the creative writing programme at New York University.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Renton Returns, Sick Boy in Love: Irvine Welsh Reimagines His Antiheroes

  In this electric conversation, Irvine Welsh joins Adam Biles at Shakespeare and Company to discuss Men in Love, the long-awaited sequel to Trainspotting. Picking up moments after Renton's betrayal, Welsh dives deep into the aftermath—friendship, love, addiction, class, and the cultural hangover of 1980s Thatcherism. The pair explore writing authentic historical fiction, how ecstasy (both drug and emotion) shaped a generation, and why mobile phones are killing drama. Welsh also shares insights into masculinity, social mobility, and why Sick Boy might just be the tragic heart of this novel. Expect laughs, gallows humor, biting commentary—and a live reading that’s pure, unfiltered Welsh.Buy Men In Love: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/men-in-love-2Irvine Welsh was born and raised in Edinburgh. His first novel, Trainspotting, has sold over one million copies in the UK and was adapted into an era-defining film. He has written fourteen further novels, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller Dead Men’s Trousers, four books of shorter fiction and numerous plays and screenplays. Irvine Welsh currently lives between London, Edinburgh and Miami.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Inside the Story Machine: Natasha Brown on Media, Power, and Fiction

  In this episode novelist Natasha Brown joins Adam Biles to discuss her daring second book, Universality. The conversation explores the novel’s structural audacity—opening with a fictional long-read article—and its thematic interrogation of class, race, media narratives, and the modern British middle class. Brown dives into her creation of Leni, a polarising columnist whose charisma masks deeper questions about power and identity. She explains the exhaustive research behind mimicking journalistic language and crafting complex, contradictory characters, all while reflecting on the fractured state of truth in the digital age. The conversation touches on the erosion of trust in traditional media, class performance, and the shifting role of fiction in helping us understand our sociopolitical moment.Buy Universality: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/universalityNatasha Brown is a British novelist.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Making Sense of Gertrude Stein, with Francesca Wade

  In this rich conversation, Francesca Wade joins Adam Biles to discuss her biography Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife. Wade explores the complexities of Stein’s life, legacy, and literary innovations, foregrounding Stein’s long-overlooked partner, Alice B. Toklas, as a powerful and persistent force behind the myth. They dive into questions of biography, erasure, performance, and gender, as well as Stein’s fraught political affiliations during WWII. Wade’s approach is both formally inventive and deeply human, highlighting unpublished interviews and fresh archival finds that illuminate the tension between public persona and private life. Whether you're a Stein devotee or merely curious about modernism’s most elusive icon, this episode offers a fascinating entry point into the world of radical art, language, and love.Buy Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/gertrude-steinFrancesca Wade’s first book, Square Haunting, was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. She has held fellowships at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center and the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Her work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, London Review of Books and Granta, among other places.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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