The Best of Writers and Company

by Eleanor Wachtel

Overview

"[Eleanor's] sense of respect, her tact, her utter lack of obsequiousness . . . and her uncanny ability to ask difficult questions . . . have endeared her to readers and listeners."—Carol Shields

Eleanor Wachtel is one of the English-speaking world's most respected interviewers. This book, celebrating her show's twenty-five-year anniversary, presents her best conversations from the show, including Jonathan Franzen, Alice Munro, J.M. Coetzee, Zadie Smith, W.G. Sebald, Toni Morrison, Seamus Heaney, and nearly a dozen others who share their views on process and the writing life.

Eleanor Wachtel has been host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company since its inception in 1990.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771960748
Publisher:	Biblioasis
Publication date:	05/17/2016
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Eleanor Wachtel was born and raised in Montreal, where she studied English literature at McGill University. Wachtel has worked as a Literary Commentator on CBC Stereo's State of the Arts, a writer-broadcaster for The Arts Tonight, a Toronto reporter for The Arts Report, as host of The Arts Tonight from 1996 to 2007 and has been host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company since its inception in 1990.

Table of Contents

Notes Towards an Introduction ix

Jonathan Franzen 1

Edwidge Danticat 19

Orhan Pamuk 45

Aleksandar Hemon 79

Anne Carson 113

Doris Lessing 135

Hilary Mantel 161

W.G. Sebald 185

Alice Munro 205

J.M. Coetzee 223

Yiyun Li 239

Seamus Heaney 265

Toni Morrison 281

Mavis Gallant 307

Zadie Smith 323

Acknowledgments 355

Editorial Reviews

03/07/2016
Fans of Wachtel's CBC Radio show, Writers & Company, know her as a superb journalist with an unbridled passion for literature. This book, celebrating her show's 25th anniversary, is a collection of her interviews with 15 prominent authors, including Edwidge Danticat, Doris Lessing, and Toni Morrison. Wachtel's on-air manner—gently prodding, thoughtful and encouraging—has helped her to elicit profound responses from even her most reticent interview subjects. The breadth of her research is evident in her questions, and the interviews offer readers deep insights into the authors' backgrounds, inspirations, fears, and dreams—plus, of course, the books they write. Wachtel's radio interviews have the warm intimacy of a conversation, but this collection in print offers readers something to hold on to and is a useful reference to keep alongside favorite books. It will also be a boon for students studying any of these writers' works. Agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Best of Writers and Company

"Wachtel's on-air manner—gently prodding, thoughtful and encouraging—has helped her to elicit profound responses from even her most reticent interview subjects. The breadth of her research is evident in her questions, and the interviews offer readers deep insights into the authors' backgrounds, inspirations, fears, and dreams—plus, of course, the books they write ... [T]his collection in print offers readers something to hold on to ... [A] useful reference to keep alongside favorite books."—Publishers Weekly

“If I need to convince you about a book of interviews selected by Eleanor Wachtel as her best from the first 25 years of Writers & Company, I really don’t know what to say to you. Do you even like books? ... Wachtel brings such dedication, integrity, curiosity and elasticity of mind to her work – it doesn’t really matter whether these 15 authors are your personal favourites, because you don’t know what you want to know from them until they answer [her] questions.”—The Globe & Mail

"Wachtel has been doing what she does so well, and for so long, that we could get lulled into taking her for granted. A fine corrective to that possibility has arrived in the form of The Best of Writers & Company, a new anthology gathering fifteen full-length interviews with an almost embarrassingly stellar list of writers. You’d be hard-pressed to find a book of comparable scope anywhere."—Montreal Gazette

"Eleanor Wachtel has spent a quarter-century interviewing the world's greatest authors ... [The Best of Writers & Company] includes her best exchanges."—Toronto Star

"[Eleanor Wachtel's style] is quiet, yet illuminating."—Peter Robb, Ottawa Citizen

From the Publisher