About this episode

Lea Ypi discusses her book 'Indignity: A Life Reimagined' and explores themes of memory, dignity, and the ethics of fictionalizing real lives.

Philosopher and author Lea Ypi joins Adam Biles at Shakespeare and Company Paris to discuss her latest book Indignity: A Life Reimagined , an extraordinary work blending biography, history, and fiction. When a photo of her grandparents' 1941 honeymoon went viral in Albania, sparking online abuse, Ypi found herself compelled to investigate her grandmother Leman's life in full. The search took her into the Albanian Secret Service archives, back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and deep into questions of memory, belonging, and what it means to preserve dignity in a world that conspires against it. Ypi discusses the dual narrative voices of the book, the "silence of the archives," the ethics of fictionalising real lives, and how writing as a novelist rather than a philosopher transformed her understanding of her subject. A conversation about history, imagination, and the moral necessity of hope. Buy Indignity: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/indignity-2 * Lea Ypi holds the Ralph Miliband Chair in Politics and Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her first trade book, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History won the Ondaatje Prize and the Slightly Foxed…

More episodes of The Shakespeare and Company Interview

• Fear Less: Tracy K. Smith on Poetry in Perilous Times · June 10, 2026 · 58 min
• Editions - Episode 1 - Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes with Taìno Mendez · May 27, 2026 · 1h 3m

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Shakespeare and Company Interview podcast page.