Jacques Testard

Thursday

Jacques Testard

New world disorder

38 min listen

On the podcast: In The Spectator's cover piece Jonathan Spyer writes that as America's role in international security diminishes history is moving Iran’s way, with political Islam now commanding much of the Middle East. He is joined by Ravi Agrawal, editor in chief of Foreign Policy and host of the FP Live podcast, to discuss whether America is still the world's policeman.  Also this week: In the magazine this week, The Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith speaks to Jacques Testard, publisher at Fitzcarraldo Editions, the indie publishing house which has just won its fourth nobel prize in under ten years.

Monday

Jacques Testard

Master of his brief

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is Nathan Englander’s third book since his unanimously praised 1999 debut collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. With this latest collection, Englander comfirms his place as a master of the short story form, staking a place for himself as an heir to the traditions of Raymond Carver — whose famous story ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ he pays tribute to in his title story — and of the great Jewish storytellers Isaak Babel and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Brought up in an East Coast Jewish Orthodox community, Englander turned secular while at Binghamton University in the mid-Nineties.

Tuesday

Jacques Testard

Recognisably Houellebecq

Jeannette Winterson’s timely intervention in the Booker prize debate last month reminded us that ‘novels that last are language-based’. On that basis, Houellebecq’s 2010 Prix Goncourt-winning novel, The Map and the Territory, might have been a worthy candidate for the Booker 2011, had it been written in English.   In this latest offering by French literature’s preeminent provocateur, we follow the career of Jed Martin, a successful artist with no ambition to be one.