January 2008 Archives
Pulitzer finalist James Gleick and theoretical physicist-cum-novelist Janna Levin discuss the tensions between science and art evidenced by her novel, "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines." Why stray from the "facts," Gleick wonders, in telling a story of Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel, two of the 20th century's greatest abstract thinkers? Because, answers Levin, "there is something about the process of thinking on the absolute periphery of what's connected to ordinary human life that you can't describe just by stating the facts." Levin takes Gleick's incisive, nuanced, fraught questions and responds with a grace and power akin, commented Junot Diaz, to "Babe Ruth bombing home runs out the park." Levin fans will also enjoy her archived Colbert Report interview here. (41:30)
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Edmund White, Maggie Nelson, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Patrick Ryan discuss "newness" in authorial voice, using Harold Bloom's idea of "the anxiety of influence" as a jumping-off point. Nguyen's theory of "the Asian once-over," Ryan's "Impostor Syndrome," and Nelson's notion of the "intoxicating" influence of another writer joust toward an agreement that writers must both escape from, and surround themselves with, other voices in order to attain their own.
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Junot Díaz reads from his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), and, in far-ranging comments, addresses the danger inherent in a dominant authorial voice. "No matter how many ruses I use," Díaz says, "I'm the only one speaking." He goes on to connect this danger, "the way a story silences other stories," to the dictatorial regime of Trujillo in his native Dominican Republic, to U.S. militaristic pride, and, on the other hand, to the often-frustrated desire of readers to understand each component of his stories.From KWLS 2008: New Voices (40:54) / 18.7 MB
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This recording is being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2008 Junot Díaz. Used with generous permission from Junot Díaz.
The first session of the 2008 Seminar kicked off in fine form with a John Hersey Memorial Address from the marvelous poet Mark Doty.
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Recordings of the Key West Literary Seminar began in 1988, when Meg O'Brien recorded and produced our annual event for WLRN's Radio Reading Service. Two decades later, we continue Meg's work. Our goal is to create a complete digital archive of Seminar recordings, and to release the best of these recordings here. You can listen right here on our site, download the .mp3 files, and/or subscribe to a series of podcasts. Recordings are released on a casual schedule, as soon as they are ready. Contact Arlo Haskell, our media director, with any questions: arlohaskell [at] gmail [dot] com.
We are grateful to Private Ear Recording Studios for their excellent recording and engineering services.
Audio recordings which originate on this page and elsewhere on www.kwls.org are being made available for educational and noncommmercial use only. All rights to the recorded material belong to the author or authors speaking. © 2008. Recordings may not be retransmitted without the preceding statement. Retransmissions must include a link to the original source on www.kwls.org.
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