{"podcast":{"title":"The Shakespeare and Company Interview","slug":"the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467","podcast_index_feed_id":174467,"rss_url":"https://access.acast.com/rss/62065b88f850df0012335061","website_url":"http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/62065b88f850df0012335061/1780994163859-33b7fda3-aca3-4e25-920d-f05eae64045b.jpeg","author":"Shakespeare and Company","episode_count":210,"summary":"Discover your next favourite book, or take a deep dive into the mind of an author you love, with The Shakespeare and Company Interview podcast. Now also the home of Editions: A Shakespeare and Company x Faber Production. Long-form interviews with internationally acclaimed authors, recorded from our bookshop in the heart of Paris. Hosted by S&Co Literary Director, Adam Biles. Discover all our upcoming events here . If you enjoy these conversations, you can order The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews here . Past guests include: Ottessa Moshfegh, Ian McEwan, Ali Smith, Hari Kunzru, Rachel Kushner, Katie Kitamura, Elif Shafak, Claire-Louiose Bennett, Leïla Simoni, Ian Dunt, David Runciman, Richard Powers, Eimear McBride, Armando Iannucci, Lauren Grodd, Lauren Elkin, Recebcca Solnit, John Berger, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Rob Doyle, Philippe Sands, George Saunders, Edouard Louis, Rachel Cusk, Preti Taneja, Alejandro Zambra, DBC Pierre, Meg Mason, Sandra Newman, David Simon, Joshua Cohen, Geoff Dyer, David Wallce-Wells, Emul Saint-John Mandel, Mohsin Hamid, Tess Gunty, A.M. Homes, John Higgs, Miriam Toews, Kamila Shamsie, Annie Ernaux, William Boyd, David Keenan, Jonatha…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-25T10:20:31.999267+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467"},"episode":{"title":"George Saunders: Fiction, Free Will, and the Question of Redemption","slug":"george-saunders-fiction-free-will-and-the-question-of-redemption","published_at":"2026-02-04T23:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467/george-saunders-fiction-free-will-and-the-question-of-redemption","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467","url":"https://shows.acast.com/sandco/episodes/george-saunders-fiction-free-will-and-the-question-of-redemp","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/62065b88f850df0012335061/e/6980b158e364600d37ea4cef/media.mp3","summary":"George Saunders returns to the Shakespeare and Company Podcast to talk with host Adam Biles about Vigil , his long-awaited new novel. Set on the threshold between life and death, Vigil follows a dying oil executive and the ghost tasked with comforting him, unfolding as a darkly comic, morally urgent meditation on guilt, responsibility, and free will in the age of climate collapse. Saunders discusses his fascination with liminal spaces and afterlives, the technical challenges of writing beyond realism, and how revision allows fiction to think more deeply than polemic ever could. Drawing on his own past in the oil industry, he reflects on writing characters implicated in environmental harm with both empathy and moral seriousness. The conversation ranges across Dickens, Tolstoy, Buddhism, and the novel’s central question: whether redemption is possible when action is no longer an option. As ever, Saunders brings humor, generosity, and intellectual daring to a discussion that embraces complexity rather than easy answers. * George Saunders is the author of thirteen books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize in 2017, and five collections of stories including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recent collection Liberation Day (selected by former President Obama has one of his ten favourite books of 2021). Three of Saunders’ books –Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln in the Bardo – were chosen for the New York Times’ list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Saunders hosts the popular Story Club on Substack, which grew out of his book on the Russian short story, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In 2013, he was named one of the world's 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine. He teaches in…","meta_description":"George Saunders returns to the Shakespeare and Company Podcast to talk with host Adam Biles about Vigil , his long-awaited new novel. Set on the threshold…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2703,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467/episodes/george-saunders-fiction-free-will-and-the-question-of-redemption/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467/george-saunders-fiction-free-will-and-the-question-of-redemption.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}